Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is You' hits No. 1 for the first time in 25 years since release
Mariah Carey has yet another No. 1 hit in her Christmas stocking, but this time it's been 25 years in the making. Her signature holiday tune, 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' has climbed to the very top of the Hot 100 Billboard chart, which is the highest position the song has ever achieved since its creation. The 25-year-old classic has already broken 3 Guinness World Records and made Carey more than 60 million dollars in royalties.
The beloved standard was originally written in 1994 as part of Mariah's first holiday album, 'Merry Christmas', but has since gone on to become firmly entrenched in popular culture as one of the most played and best-selling modern holiday songs of all time. The New Yorker even called it "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon," and the song has made the Billboard charts every single holiday season since its original release. This latest No. 1 makes it Mariah's 19th chart-topper overall, second only to the Beatles, who have 20 to their name. And if 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' can hang on to the No. 1 position till January 2020, she'll be the only artist in Billboard history to have a No. 1 hit in four consecutive decades. You can listen to her golden oldie here:
The song also serves as the grand closer of her annual Christmas show, which first started as a residency at New York's Beacon Theatre - it has since grown into an audio-visual extravaganza featuring ornate sets, backup dancers and even a cameo from Santa Claus himself!
This year, Mariah Carey used it as the finale for a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden on Decemeber 15, just hours before 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' officially became the country's No. 1 song.
"This just feels so great because it’s been such a long time coming, and I never really expected it," said Carey. "Even when it went to No. 9 two years ago, and then No. 3 [last year], I was like, 'This is incredible!'"
Speaking to Billboard, she admitted, "I don’t even know what to say. We definitely wanted to kick it into high gear this year with the song to celebrate the 25th anniversary, but I definitely didn’t expect it to hit No. 1 two weeks before Christmas! I just want to thank everybody. I want the world to have the best holiday ever." A mini-documentary about the song was also just released by Amazon Music - you can check that out here:
In a recent Christmas episode of 'Billy on the Street', Mariah Carey confirmed that she wrote the classic hit in "maybe an hour and a half." That's not too shabby for 90 minutes' worth of work! And on Dec 19th, Mariah will be inaugurating a music-to-light show designed by Marc Brickman that will sync the illuminated Empire State Building with 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' at 8 pm E.T. So if you're part of her Lambily, make sure you tune in for that!