Entertainment (Commonwealth Union)_If anything about Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas is You” annoys you, best to avoid shopping malls now since her 1994 carol is dominating holiday music like nothing else. Or the radio, or maybe music altogether, for that matter.
The Christmas colossus has reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart the past four years in a row measuring the most popular songs each week by sales and streaming, as well as airplay, not just the holiday-themed — and it is reasonable to assume 2023 will be no different. One expert predicts that it will soon exceed $100 million in earnings. Even its ringtone has sold millions.
When you think of Christmas right now, you will think of that song.
Carey’s hit is so omnipresent that the Wall Street Journal wrote about retail workers being driven batty by the many times it comes on in their stores, including one worker who retreats into the stockroom every time he hears the distinctive opening bells.
Yet the story behind “All I Want for Christmas is You” is not all mistletoe and holly.
The co-authors of the song – Carey and Walter Afanasieff, are in a mystifying feud. The authors of a different song carrying the same title have sued seeking $20 million in damages. Her bid to trademark that title failed although Carey calls herself the Queen of Christmas.
On 1st November every year, the song’s hibernation ends when Carey posts on social media that it is time to play it again. She was depicted being freed from a block of ice to make the declaration in this year’s message.
The song was perfectly engineered for success In both music and lyrics, says Joe Bennett, musicologist and professor at the Berklee College of Music.
At the time of its release, most new holiday music came from artists who were past their peak and looking for a new market. Carey though, was at the top of her game in 1994.
“All I Want for Christmas is You” works as holiday song and a love song. Carey sets it up: She does not care about all the holiday trappings, she has one thing one person on her mind. It is kept vague whether it is a lover or someone she yearns for.
She sprinkles in specific holiday references: the Christmas tree, presents, Santa Claus, reindeer, sleigh bells, a stocking upon the fireplace, children singing and, of course, mistletoe.
Since 2010, Billboard has produced lists of top seasonal hits, and “All I Want for Christmas is You” has been No. 1 for 57 of the 62 weeks that it has run, said Gary Trust, chart director. The Luminate data company said that the song peaked at 387 million streams in 2019, the 25th anniversary of its release.
Precise numbers are hard to come by, but Spotify’s former chief economist and author of the book “Pivot,” Will Page, estimates the song will exceed $100 million in earnings this holiday season.
“By most objective measures,” Bennett says, “it’s the most successful Christmas song of all time.”
Afanasieff told Rothschild that he and Carey did not speak for about two decades until she called him around the time of the song’s 25th anniversary, asking for the co-writer’s permission to use the “All I Want for Christmas is You” lyrics in a children’s book.
Carey wasn’t a keyboard player and didn’t know how to write music, at the time the song was written, Afanasieff has said. Carey’s spokeswoman did not respond to an interview request. A handful of more contemporary songs have shown potential staying power, like Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” from 2013, Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm” from 2019, dGwen Stefani & Blake Shelton’s “You Make it Feel Like Christmas” from 2017 and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” from 2014,
