Mariah Carey – From ‘world’s number 1 diva’ to ‘Queen of Christmas’

‘Queen of Christmas’ is a title that any female singer covets, but Mariah Carey – the person assigned that name – does not feel pleased at all.

The 90s of the last century witnessed the rise of Mariah Carey – one of the most successful female artists of all time. Her debut album, Mariah Carey (1990), climbed to number one on the Billboard chart and produced four consecutive No. 1 hits: Vision of Love , Love Takes Time , Someday and I Don’t Wanna Cry . After that, Mariah Carey continued to dominate all music charts globally with a series of commercially and artistically successful albums: Emotions (1991), Music Box (1993), Daydream (1995), Butterfly (1991), 1997) and Rainbow (1999).

Mariah Carey is the most successful female artist of the 90s

Mariah Carey’s high five-octave voice also earned her the noble title “New Age Diva”, on par with Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. However, she did something that neither of the others could do: that was to release a hugely successful Christmas music album and write her name in the history of this difficult music genre.

At the end of 1994, Mariah Carey released her fourth studio album titled Merry Christmas . Most of the songs on this album were co-written by her with Walter Afanasieff and the rest were cover music.

‘Merry Christmas’ album cover

Merry Christmas flew straight to number one on Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart. To date, this album has sold 15 million copies and is the best-selling Christmas album of all time. In particular, Merry Christmas’s first single All I Want for Christmas is You , personally written by Mariah Carey, has become a classic Christmas song by anyone’s standards.

The content of All I Want for Christmas is You is quite simple. It describes a girl in love’s wish to have a lover on Christmas day. Yet, this song has echoed in every corner of the planet every festival season for the past 23 years.

Every year, All I Want for Christmas is You returns to the Billboard Hot 100 chart due to high demand from listeners. For example, this year, its highest ranking on Billboard was No.9 and attracted more than 220 million listens on the online music site Spotify.

As a result, All I Want for Christmas is You automatically ranked No.11 on the list of “Best-selling singles of all time” and is the most downloaded Christmas song in history. Not only that, its phone ringtone version was also certified platinum twice (the first Christmas song to do so).

Explaining this, music professor Luke Dubois of New York University commented: “The music industry has never adequately paid people of color and women. However, Mariah Carey – a woman of color – achieved great success in a system full of such discrimination. The reason ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ brings so many things to Mariah Carey is because she took care of everything, from composing, producing to performing. It’s just an inevitable consequence.”

Throughout her career, Mariah Carey regularly performed at Christmas and New Year’s celebration events. She even wrote a comic book called All I Want for Christmas is You . “My dream when I wrote ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ was that it could become a classic Christmas song. I’m so proud that the song has continued to create beautiful memories for fans.” grave every year,” Mariah Carey told People magazine in 2015.

Mariah Carey is a familiar face at Christmas shows

It is all of this that makes the media and fans often call Mariah Carey the title “Queen of Christmas”. However, the ironic thing is that the American diva does not like this at all.

“I do not accept that title. Because I feel like I’m not worthy,” Mariah Carey said. “I really thank the fans for their love. I have a strong love for the Christmas season. It’s the best time of the year. For 12 months, I just waited for this opportunity to cook and decorate the Christmas tree.”

Whether she accepts the title “Queen of Christmas” or not, Mariah Carey’s song All I Want for Christmas is You will certainly continue to be on the list of must-listen songs for billions of people around the world. every time Christmas comes, at least for the next few decades.