It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, remorse or fear, and it will not stop. No, it’s not The Terminator – it’s Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You!”
As soon as Halloween ends, Carey, 54, bids farewell to Halloween as she takes over the airwaves with her 1994 holiday hit. Billboard noted on Monday, November 27, that the Holiday 100 – the chart ranking the top seasonal songs of all eras – was returning to the charts menu. The chart was launched in 2011, and Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” has been at No. 1 for 58 out of the chart’s 63 total weeks since its inception.
The other songs that topped the Holiday 100 were: Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe,” which did so for a single week in the 2011-12 season; Pentatonix’s “Little Drummer Boy,” which reached No. 1 for one week in 2013-14, and “Mary Did You Know?” for two weeks in the 2014-15 season; and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me,” for a sole week in the 2014-15 holiday rush.
There is also a good chance that Carey’s Christmas classic will top the Hot 100. For the week of December 2, the song cracked the Top 5, jumping up 13 spots to No. 4. Jack Harlow’s “Lovin on Me” is at No. 1, followed by Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” and Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red.” Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’’ Around The Christmas Tree” is the only other holiday song in the Top 10, re-entering the Hot 100 at No. 8.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been a commercial smash for Carey. Though initially ineligible for the Hot 100 because it wasn’t released commercially as a single in a physical format, the rules have since changed to allow it to place on Billboard’s main chart. In 2019, the song topped the Hot 100 for the first time, reaching the No. 1 spot 25 years after its release.
The momentum carried over into 2020, where “All I Want For Christmas Is You” topped the chart in the first week of 2021. It returned to No. 1 in the last week of 2021 and bookended 2022, topping the Hot 100 for two weeks in January and the final three weeks of December.
The song originated from Carey’s 1994 album, Merry Christmas. “I felt like it was a little bit too early in my career to be doing a Christmas album,” she told Billboard in 2017. And then — I decided to do it.” Carey wrote her hit with producer Walter Afanasieff, and she’s embraced her title of “Queen of Christmas.”
“The crazy thing about it is, every year, it tends to increase in popularity,” Carey told Billboard about the song that has come to define Christmas every year. “I’m very thankful that people seem to still have an attachment to it. It makes me feel good when people tell me that it’s part of their lives.”
