"All I Want For Christmas Is You" - a hit 27 years ago - brings in Mariah Carey $600,000 to a million dollars each December each year.
According to Billboard, the song topped a series of trending charts last week. All I Want For Christmas Is You has added 37.6 million US streams, 26.1 million radio plays, and 7,400 paid downloads. Since its release in 1994, in the US alone, this song has had 4.3 billion radio plays, 1.4 billion streams, and 3.7 million downloads.
This achievement makes All I Want For Christmas Is You the first song to be listed on the Billboard Hot 100 in three different periods. For Christmas in 2019 and 2020, the hit also led for weeks in a row. The song also topped many global online music charts such as Spotify, Apple or Youtube. To date, All I Want for Christmas is You is the best-selling modern Christmas hit. Many viewers commented that when Mariah's voice sounded, it was the beginning of Christmas.
All I Want For Christmas Is You on the album Merry Christmas, released when Mariah Carey was 24 years old. The song is about a girl who misses her lover during the Christmas season. She doesn't need gifts or watching the snow, she just wants to have a lover by her side. According to the Huffington Post, Mariah Carey took an hour to complete the song. Then, she met her partner Walter Afanasieff and spent 15 minutes choosing chords and melodies with him.
The song was born when Mariah Carey had just had a breakthrough in her career with the album Music Box. At that time, the singer was the wife of Tommy Mottola - the director of the entertainment company Sony Music Entertainment. He planned the next for his wife and came up with an idea for a Christmas album. Carey was initially opposed, believing that only out-of-date artists would release festival albums. Mottola insisted on making his wife perform and All I Want For Christmas Is You was recorded in August 1994. Carey decorated the couple's New York apartment in midsummer Christmas style for creative inspiration.
In her autobiography, released in 2020, Carey explains that Christmas was as special to her childhood as it was to her adulthood. The singer grew up in a poor and complicated family, so he always feels sad every holiday. She often witnessed relatives arguing and fighting. All make Carey always wish for a safe home, full of love. Carey said: "I'm a big fan of the holidays. I've been singing Christmas songs since I was very young." In 1994, when it was first released, the singer described the song as a fun and nostalgic song of the 1960s.
Music critics attribute the song's enduring vitality to Mariah Carey's lyrics, fun melody, and powerful voice. Al Payne - director of radio station WHUR-FM in the US, said that All I Want For Christmas Is You evoked nostalgic emotions to audiences of all ethnicities and genders. "It reminds us of visiting Grandma's house on Christmas afternoon or the next morning opening the presents," Payne said.
Music helps the singer earn about $ 60 million in royalties as of 2016. Celebrity Networth reports that singers earn an additional $ 600,000 to $ 1 million every December every year thanks to the song. It has been included in many films and covers by famous artists such as Ariana Grande, CeeLo Green, My Chemical Romance, Kylie Minogue, Mumford and Sons or Shania Twain...
Outside the US, the song has topped the charts of many countries such as Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia. In major markets such as Japan, Germany, UK, the song has been in the top 10 many times. Since 2014, Mariah Carey often organizes shows to honor the song. In 2019, Amazon made a short documentary called Mariah Carey is Christmas inspired by the hit.
Mariah Carey was born in 1970, won five Grammy Awards and sold over 200 million records. She is famous for her five-octave voice and glamorous fashion and performance style. Guinness gave her the title of "Songbird Supreme", which is given to people with the highest voices in the world. With All I Want For Christmas Is You, Mariah is also known as "the queen of Christmas music".