Artist:Mariah Carey
Song:All I Want For Christmas Is You
Album:Merry Christmas: Deluxe Anniversary Edition
Since Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You topped the charts in 1994, it has become a Christmas perennial and has topped Billboard's Holiday 100 since they started it in 2011. It is one of the few contemporary original Christmas songs to appear regularly on this chart. This chart is dominated by older recordings like Brenda Lee's 1958 single Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. All I Want for Christmas Is You was on Mariah's 1994 album Merry Christmas. Three of the ten songs including All I Want for Christmas Is You were written by Mariah and producer Walter Afanasieff. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 and has become the biggest hit in her catalog because the song is a hit all over again annually. This song is a moneymaker for her. The longevity of this song is for a couple of reasons. Mariah keeps performing it live and on TV. And she even made an animated Christmas film called All I Want for Christmas Is You. Of course she also performs Christmas standards. But when most artists record Christmas albums, they usually don't write original songs. The only recent original song that appears regularly on the Holiday 100 is Justin Bieber's 2011 single Mistletoe. Michael Buble has had success in the Christmas market but mostly with standards. So there's a financial incentive for Mariah to promote this song. The other thing is though the song is new, the arrangement is supposed to remind you of Phil Spector's Christmas Album. And Mariah's vocal is clearly a tribute to Darlene Love. Her critics including yours truly have always accused her of aping great singers. She's always done that. Even the music video is supposed to look like an old home movie but Mariah shot the footage in 1993. So she deliberately tried to evoke nostalgia about Christmas and that's why the song has been so successful. Mariah recorded the 2010 album Merry Christmas to You when she was on Island Records but it wasn't as successful. Merry Christmas is only 34 minutes long but Sony has released the album with a second CD of live recordings and songs from Merry Christmas to You. So it's kind of a Mariah Carey Christmas Greatest Hits album. Here's the video for All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey.
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