Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” continues to make pop music history this year as the artist’s perennial yuletide standard (cowritten and coproduced by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff in 1994) keeps breaking new records while lighting up the 2021 holiday season.
This December, “All I Want for Christmas is You” became the first and only holiday single to take home the RIAA’s coveted Diamond Award (in recognition of ten million sales and streaming units in the United States).
Listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” here.
“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” said Mariah. “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.”
“Mariah is the Queen of Christmas,” said President of the Commercial Music Group at Sony Music Entertainment, Richard Story. “Her Sony Music family congratulates her on breaking yet another record, and continuing to make history as the first and only artist to achieve this incredible milestone.”
“Mariah Carey is one of the top Gold & Platinum awarded artists of all time, and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ becoming the only holiday song to achieve Diamond is a remarkable milestone forever etched in music history. Congratulations and happy holidays to Mariah and her amazing Sony team,” said Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.
Carey also spotlights the global fan-favorite “All I Want for Christmas is You” in the Apple TV+ smash-hit, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, with a show-stopping performance of the record-breaking song, along with her twins, son Moroccan and daughter Monroe. On the heels of this exciting news, Carey debuts her all-new holiday extravaganza Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues, premiering globally today and available now on Apple TV+.
On Tuesday, December 7, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) will make two Mariah Carey films, Live at the Tokyo Dome and First Vision, available for digital purchase and rental for the first time in the United States. Showcasing more than 80 minutes of music, including a stunning live version of “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Mariah Carey: Live at the Tokyo Dome captures the artist’s historic first concert in Japan, lensed during her 1996 Daydream World Tour. Mariah Carey: First Vision gives viewers an inside look at Mariah on the cusp of her meteoric rise to superstardom; this 1991 film contains early music videos, behind-the-scenes footage, an interview and songs from her very first live performance at New York’s intimate Tatou Club in 1990. Currently available in the US only, four additional Mariah Carey films–Fantasy: Mariah Carey at Madison Square Garden, Here is Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey Around the World and Mariah Carey: MTV Unplugged +3–will be released worldwide via SPE on December 7.
Billboard recently named Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” as the #1 record on their Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs list. The song first cracked the Top 10 of the Hot 100 in December 2017 and, in December 2019, 25 years after its original release, became the second holiday single ever to hit #1 on the Hot 100, breaking the record for longest span from release date to #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 again in 2020, giving it a five week total in the top slot, a new milestone for a holiday recording.
Recorded in August 1994 at The Hit Factory in New York, “All I Want for Christmas is You” was originally released in October 1994 as the first single from Mariah’s Merry Christmas album, a showcase for Mariah’s interpretations of familiar holiday songs alongside the new material she’d composed with co-writer Walter Walter Afanasieff. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” went on to become one of the best-selling singles (of any genre) of all time and the best-selling holiday ringtone in the United States for several years running.
When “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 on the Hot 100 in 2019, it was Mariah’s 19th claim on the top spot, a record for a solo recording artist; when her holiday single hit #1 the following year, Mariah became the first artist to have a Hot 100 # 1 in four separate decades (the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s).
Having charted every holiday season since its original release, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”–which The New Yorker called “one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon”–has become an essential seasonal standard that continues to bring the spirit of Christmas to the hearts of music lovers the world over.
“All I Want for Christmas is You” is Carey’s biggest international success, topping the charts in twenty-six countries including Australia, Canada, France, and Germany. In 2020, the holiday classic topped the charts in the United Kingdom for the first time, spending a record 69 weeks in the UK Top 40 before reaching #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” is the all-time best-selling Christmas single by a female artist and one of the top-selling physical singles in music history. It’s the first holiday ringtone to be certified double platinum by the RIAA.
As of December 20, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” makes an unprecedented return to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, rising from No. 2. The carol logs its sixth total week atop the Hot 100 and becomes the first song in the chart’s history to have led in three distinct runs on the ranking (2019, 2020, 2021). Additionally, the record tops both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts. The two global charts rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories, as compiled by MRC Data.
The song was first released on Carey’s album Merry Christmas in 1994 and, as streaming has grown and holiday music has become more prominent on streaming services’ seasonal playlists, it hit the Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time in December 2017, before ascending to No. 1 in both December 2019 (for three weeks) and December 2020 (two).
Carey’s gift that keeps on giving (and leading) paces six holiday classics in the Hot 100’s top 10, with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” rising to No. 2 and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” returning to the tier at No. 9.
A deeper look at Carey’s latest Hot 100 coronation with “Christmas,” on Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings:
Airplay, streams & sales: Carey’s “Christmas” drew 37.6 million U.S. streams (up 16%) and 26.1 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 7%) and sold 7,400 downloads (up 7%) in the Dec. 10-16 tracking week, according to MRC Data.
The song spends a 13th total week at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart and rises 9-7 on Digital Song Sales; and 24-23 on Radio Songs. It also leads the multi-metric Holiday 100 chart for a 49th week, of the chart’s 54 total weeks since the list launched in 2011; it has topped the tally for 34 consecutive weeks, dating to the start of the 2015-16 holiday season, and dominates as the top title on the recently-revealed Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs chart.
Since its release, the song has upped its U.S. totals to 4.3 billion in radio audience, 1.4 billion streams and 3.7 million in download sales.
No. 1 in a third separate chart run: Carey’s “Christmas” first topped the Hot 100 dated Dec. 21, 2019, and led again on the next two lists, dated Dec. 28, 2019, and Jan. 4, 2020.
The following holiday season, it returned to No. 1 on the chart dated Dec. 19, 2020, and, after a week at No. 2 (below Taylor Swift’s “Willow”), topped the Jan. 2, 2021, dated tally.
As “Christmas” rules the latest, Dec. 25, 2021-dated chart, it claims its sixth total week at No. 1 in its third seasonal run at the summit, becoming the first song in the Hot 100’s 63-year history to lead in three distinct chart runs. The track has re-entered the survey each November or December dating to 2012.
(As “Christmas” has made four interrupted climbs to the top of the Hot 100, on charts dated Dec. 21, 2019, Dec. 19, 2020, Jan. 2, 2021, and now Dec. 25, 2021, it ties 24kGoldn’s “Mood,” featuring iann dior, beginning in October 2020, and Drake’s “Nice for What,” in 2018, as the only songs with four separate ascents to No. 1; unlike “Christmas,” the latter two tracks logged their four distinct rises to No. 1 over unbroken chart stays.)
Longest span atop the Hot 100: Carey’s “Christmas” now boasts the longest span from a song’s first week at No. 1 on the Hot 100 to its latest: two years and four days (Dec. 21, 2019-Dec. 25, 2021).
It passes the only other song to lead the Hot 100 over multiple runs: Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” which topped the tally dated Sept. 19, 1960, before, thanks to new popularity among adult audiences, leading the lists dated Jan. 13 and 20, 1962, ruling again after a gap of a year, three months and three weeks. (Still, that break remains the longest between Hot 100 reigns.)
Most weeks at No. 1 for a holiday hit: With its sixth week atop the Hot 100, Carey’s “Christmas” extends its record for the most time at No. 1 among holiday songs. The only other seasonal single to jingle to the apex, “The Chipmunk Song,” by David Seville & the Chipmunks, spent four weeks on top beginning in December 1958.
Carey’s record 85th week atop Hot 100: With “Christmas,” Carey claims her record-extending 85th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, dating to the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, inception.
Most Weeks at No. 1 on Hot 100
85, Mariah Carey
60, Rihanna
59, The Beatles
52, Drake
50, Boyz II Men
47, Usher
41, Beyoncé
37, Michael Jackson
34, Elton John
34, Bruno Mars
“Christmas” became Carey’s 19th Hot 100 No. 1, the most among soloists and one away from The Beatles’ overall record 20. It also made Carey the first artist to have ranked at No. 1 on the chart in four distinct decades, dating to her first week on top with her debut single, “Vision of Love,” in 1990.
Further, “Christmas” is Carey’s record fifth Hot 100 No. 1 to rule for six weeks or more. She one-ups Boyz II Men, Drake and Usher, each with four such leaders.
Plus, it’s not only fitting that “Christmas” leads the Hot 100 dated Dec. 25, 2021, but Carey is the only artist to top the chart on multiple rankings dated Dec. 25: her “Hero” began a four-week stay at No. 1 on the Dec. 25, 1993, Hot 100. (This week’s chart is the 10th dated Dec. 25 in the list’s history.)
