A simple reading of the title All I Want For Christmas Is You and the song resonates in your mind for the day. Known worldwide, this single is considered the most popular year-end song in history according to Billboard.
It is the 11th best-selling single in history, with more than 15 million copies sold worldwide, and also the most downloaded Christmas song, 3.2 million downloads in 2017, ahead of classics like Jingle Bell Rock Where Merry Christmas, notes the American magazine. Each year the American diva takes great pleasure in reminding the whole world that it’s time to listen to one of her greatest songs. And it works.
An unpredictable success
To understand the enthusiasm for this end-of-year music, we have to go back to June 1994, in a chic seaside resort in the eastern United States. It is alongside the composer Walter Afanasieff, that the singer creates this great hit in less than an hour. At the time Mariah Carey already has three albums and two Grammy Awards and doesn’t want to write a Christmas song at first. In addition, at that time, few artists ventured into the composition of special end-of-year single. But thanks to his manager and spouse at the time, Thomas Mottola, she accepts and begins to work on what allows her today to be still the superstar that we know.
In a few minutes, 15 to be precise, Walter and Mariah write and compose, All I Want For Christmas Is You. Because yes, Mariah does not wish for gifts, only the one for whom she is burning with love at that time, her husband Thomas. A song with simple lyrics but terribly effective.
Moreover, to succeed in putting the musicians and the rest of the team in the mood, the singer decorates the recording studio with trees and garlands, so that this month of June 1994 becomes festive and in the theme!
Walter Afanasieff returns to California to have the soundtrack recorded by an orchestra. Unfortunately, the result was not expected and he chose to compose and arrange the whole piece on his computer from a melody played on the piano a few days earlier. Once ready, the song is unveiled to the general public. It is an immediate success. Mariah Carey is at the peak of his career and the exemplary simplicity of this song satisfies even the most difficult music critics.
27 years of success
“What’s crazy is that the song tends to gain popularity every year”, note Mariah Carey in an interview with Billboard. All I Want for Christmas Is You is also one of the tracks of the very famous Christmas movie soundtrack Love Actually. It is moreover one of the rare films to have obtained the right to use a piece of the singer, the latter generally never accepts that one uses her titles.
Thus, each year, in addition to flooding the airwaves, people rediscover the song through the film. The feature film, released in 2003, is rebroadcast at the end of the year in the United Kingdom or in France.
Obviously, almost 30 years after the release of the title, the singer took advantage of it. A book, an animated film, a range of candies, a show she gave in New York, or even London and Paris in 2018, and many other things, emanated from this simple Christmas song. Thus the star returned to the ranking of the highest paid personalities in the world. In 2019 she would have touched 96 million euros thanks to this title. Year during which the diva unveiled a new clip for this tube which has accumulated to date more than 195 million views, against 704 million for the original version.
Having become the Christmas Queen, this heady-rhythm hit stays in our minds for one or even two months, but yet, every year we take great pleasure in singing it at the top of our lungs.
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