FEATURE:
A Perennial Favourite
The Legacy and Wonder of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You
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AT this time of year…
the Christmas classics are being played. There are new Christmas tracks every year but, to me, they are nothing compared to the greats. From the start of December (or earlier) shops and cafes are blasting out some of our absolute favourites. One of my all-time favourite Christmas tunes is Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You. She co-wrote and co-produced it with Walter Afanasieff for her fourth studio album and first holiday album, Merry Christmas (1994). The song was released as the lead single from the album on 29th October, 1994. It has Christmas ingredients like bells, a choral feel, an uplifting sound and positive message. Whereas other Christmas songs are about materialism or being with family, Carey just wants to be with a special someone. Favouring this man above lots of presents and the excesses of the season, it is a song that has a singalong chorus and a powerhouse vocal from Carey. I am going to come to an article about All I Want for Christmas Is You soon. Prior to that, there are some articles that point to its critical reception and its record sales. This Wikipedia article collates the feedback and reviews of, to me, the best Christmas track of the 1990s:
“All I Want for Christmas Is You" received critical acclaim. Roch Parisien from AllMusic called the song "a year-long banger", complimenting its instrumentation and melody. Steve Morse, editor of The Boston Globe, wrote that Carey sang with a lot of soul. In his review for Carey's Merry Christmas II You, Thomas Connor from the Chicago Sun-Times called the song "a simple, well-crafted chestnut and one of the last great additions to the Christmas pop canon".
Shona Craven of Scotland's The Herald, said, "[it's] a song of optimism and joy that maybe, just maybe, hints at the real meaning of Christmas." Additionally, she felt the main reason it was so successful is the subject "you" in the lyrics, explaining, "Perhaps what makes the song such a huge hit is the fact that it's for absolutely everyone." Craven opened her review with a bold statement: "Bing Crosby may well be turning in his grave, but no child of the 1980s will be surprised to see Mariah Carey's sublime All I Want For Christmas Is You bounding up the charts after being named the nation's top festive song." While reviewing the 2009 remix version, Becky Bain from Idolator called the song a "timeless classic" and wrote, "We love the original song to pieces—we blast it while decorating our Christmas tree and lighting our Menorah."
Kyle Anderson from MTV labeled the track "a majestic anthem full of chimes, sleigh bells, doo-wop flourishes, sweeping strings and one of the most dynamic and clean vocal performances of Carey's career". Music & Media commented, "Phil Spector's Christmas album has been the main inspiration for this carol in a "Darlene Love against the wall of sound" tradition." Music Week wrote, "Mariah meets Phil Spector, some chimes and the inevitable sleigh-bells; this is everything you would expect from a Mariah Carey record." In a 2006 retrospective look at Carey's career, Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker said, the "charming" song was one of Carey's biggest accomplishments, calling it "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon". Dan Hancox, editor of The National, quoted and agreed with Jones' statement, calling the song "perfection". According to Barry Schwartz from Stylus Magazine, "to say this song is an instant classic somehow doesn't capture its amazingicity; it's a modern standard: joyous, exhilarating, loud, with even a hint of longing." Schwartz praised the song's lyrics as well, describing them as "beautifully phrased," and calling Carey's voice "gorgeous" and "sincere”.
All I Want for Christmas Is You ranks alongside the best songs for this time of year. Many will argue as to whether it is the very best, but so many people buy it and demand it be played because it is so effusive, catchy and warm. There is a bit of treacle, though the power of Mariah Carey’s voice and conviction, combined with Christmas sounds and images, makes it a gem that has been embraced by multiple generations. It is not a Christmas song that peaked in the ‘90s and then declined. If anything. All I Want for Christmas Is You has grown even bigger and more influential. On 4th December, this article spotlighted a unique honour for a holiday song:
“Mariah Carey’s Christmas anthem, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” became the first and only holiday single to take home the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) Diamond Award in recognition of 10 million sales and streaming units in the United States.
“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” Carey said. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”
As of Friday, the song also returned to Billboard Hot 100 and clinched the #1 Spot on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs”.
Even if you are not a fan of Mariah Carey and her studio albums, it is hard to resist the festive classic that is All I Want for Christmas Is You. I am a fan of Carey and I feel this song stands alongside her very best. In 2021, All I Want for Christmas Is You is still celebrated and beloved. It is a song that will never go out of fashion or not be on Christmas wish lists. In 2019, TIME penned a piece about the continuing legacy and importance of the 1994 diamond:
“The temperatures are dipping and twinkling lights are being hung, but nothing confirms that the holiday season is in full swing as cogently as Mariah Carey’s now-iconic holiday classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
The festive track, a veritable pop masterpiece written and performed by Carey (with a co-writing assist from her longtime collaborator at the time, Walter Afanasieff) has consistently dominated not only the holiday music charts, but the zeitgeist since it made its joyous debut in 1994. Perhaps even more impressive is the Christmas song’s ability to be beloved throughout this time period, somehow capable of charming listeners in spite of its ubiquity every holiday season. Now, 25 years and endless screenings of Love, Actually later, the song has become on of the ultimate modern Christmas anthems, unrivaled by any of its contemporary peers and more than able to hold its own with longtime favorites of the holiday canon.
The popularity of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is noteworthy, not merely in its staying power (although a quarter of a century at the forefront of the holiday genre is a flex, if there ever was one) or its momentum in gaining ubiquity year after year, but in its ability to command the category over a period in which her industry and the culture has evolved significantly. The Internet, streaming services and multiple waves of new artists have gained considerable traction in the past three decades, but when it comes to the holiday song, Carey and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” have reigned triumphant, over (not in spite of) multiple platforms.
Case in point? According to a 2016 Nielsen report, “All I Want for Christmas” was the only song to make the top 5 holiday songs for radio airplay, streaming services and song purchases, helping to demonstrate the track’s appeal across generations and platforms. Last year, Nielsen found that total digital streaming of audio and video for the song clocked in at just under 229 million, while digital sales of the song were 100k and radio airplay checked in at over 42,000. The multi-platinum song consistently tops the Billboard Holiday Hot 100 and made history in early 2019 when it hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first holiday song in 60 years to break the top 5 and the second-ever holiday song to chart that high.
There are multiple factors to the song’s popularity, the most obvious of which are the powerhouse vocals of the beloved elusive chanteuse. But the savvy songwriting and themes of the song have played an integral role in the success of the track as well. The track and the album it appeared on, Merry Christmas, were inspired by the upbeat sounds of Phil Spector, who made the hit 1963 Christmas album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.
In an interview with Business Insider in 2013, co-writer Afanasieff noted that he was fairly surprised that the track was as commercially successful as it was because it didn’t adhere to conventional holiday music or the sounds of the time.
“My first reaction was, ‘That sounds like someone doing voice scales,’” Afanasieff said. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
As is her wont, Carey knew exactly what she wanted and kept the melody true to her vision, resulting in a song that Afanasieff says has stayed on top due to precisely that — its uptempo sound, a near rarity in the offerings of American Christmas songs. That’s not to say that the song is simple in any way, however.
“The melody of ‘All I Want For Christmas’ is astoundingly complicated considering how simple it seems,” songwriter and And the Writer Is… podcast host Ross Golan tells TIME. “The brain latches on songs after the listener invests significant time to learn them. That song in particular is now neurologically built into the zeitgeist.”
This, of course, attests to Carey’s skills as a songwriter, a factor that’s often overshadowed by her outstanding talent and larger-than-life persona. Lest listeners forget while listening to her hit the whistle register, Carey wrote 17 of her 18 #1 hits, a feat that astounds on multiple levels.
“This song is a testament to something that Mariah Carey is still undervalued for: Her songwriting,” beauty writer and self-professed lifelong Lamb (for the uninitiated, Lambs or the “Lambily” are the devoted fans of Carey) Tynan Sinks tells TIME. “Mariah Carey wrote this song, dude. Isn’t that crazy? It’s such a classic that people think it’s a cover of something else, but it’s a Mariah Carey original, baby. She just sat down one day and literally invented Christmas.”
In 2015, Slate reported that the song’s seemingly magic ability to put you in a festive holiday mood is actually because of its dulcet harmony, which contains at least 13 distinct chords, including a specific minor subdominant chord, which they dub “the most Christmassy chord of all” and is found in songs like Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas.”
In a deep dive into the song’s structure at Quartz, musicologist and Switched on Pop podcast host Nate Sloan also revealed that since Carey was inspired by old school holiday music, she used an AABA song structure that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s and that was used for songs like “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which can do plenty for holiday nostalgia for the good ‘ol days.
Unlike “Rudolph” and “Frosty,” however, Carey’s track provides a more adult take on a Christmas song, which also proved to be a boon. By eschewing children-centric holiday iconography like Santa and Rudolph for Carey’s trademark musical subject, love and romance, she reached a whole new — and very large — demographic with a theme that everyone could identify with.
“It’s not a religious song,” Andrew Mall, assistant professor of music at Northeastern Univeristy tells TIME. “She talks about Christmas, but no religious beliefs. It’s actually a love song. Anyone can inhabit those lyrics; the lover is not named, the lover is not gendered, so anyone can put themselves in that position as needing someone to love at the holidays. It’s a secular love song and not a religious Christmas carol.” Mall also attributes the song’s popularity to nostalgia of another kind: for the ’90s as a whole, especially the music of the time.
Not only is All I Want for Christmas Is You one of the best Christmas/holiday songs ever. I think it is a song that sits alongside the best in any genre. Its positivity and sense of joy is never cloying or old-fashioned. Other Christmas songs are played less than when they were released, though Mariah Carey’s seems to get more airplay each year! It is testament to a song that is instantly recognisable and as must-listen at this time of year. All I Want for Christmas Is You is a song that we will be enjoyed…
FOR decades to come.