When Mariah Carey released her first holiday album, Merry Christmas, in 1994, she probably never thought that one of the songs on that album would go on to become a chart-topping Christmas standard – or did she?
Mariah reposted an interview clip of herself from 1994, in which she talks about the album and the fact that she’s written three original songs for it. The interviewer asks, “Do you have the hope that one of your songs would be considered a classic one day? Wouldn’t that be nice, to have a classic Christmas song?”
“I would love it,” Mariah smiles. “I mean, I’m not gonna be that arrogant as to say, well, you know, ‘This’ll become a classic’ or ‘that’s a classic,’ but I’m very happy with them. I had a great time writing the Christmas songs.”
Mariah captioned the video, “How it started! So grateful,” adding a heart emoji.
Of course, Merry Christmas contained “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” which is now the very definition of a “classic Christmas song.” Ironically, the song wasn’t allowed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994 because it wasn’t available as a commercial single.
That rule ended in 1998, and the song appeared on the Hot 100 at #83 in 2000. But then it wasn’t allowed to reenter the chart in subsequent years because it wasn’t “new.” Finally, in 2012, Billboard changed its rules again and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was back on the Hot 100, peaking at #21 in January 2013.
It made it into the top 10 in 2017 and hit #1 in 2019. It’s returned there each year since, recently racking up its 19th week on top overall.
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