The best investment Mariah Carey ever made was in Christmas. She is the pop queen of the holiday. And here’s the proof: her 25 year old single, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has hit number 1 on Billboard today.
Mariah, who can’t get arrested on the charts anymore, possesses this perennial hit that just gets bigger and bigger every year. It’s written in the Phil Spector style of Christmas songs by her old collaborator Walter Afanasieff, who I hope lives in a big mansion with a large chimney. Mariah is the co-writer.
Last week, “All I Want” sold 242,000 copies, most of which came from streaming. But 27,000 copies were paid downloads. Not bad. Year to year, since last December 15th, “All I Want” has sold almost 1 million copies. Pretty impressive.
When the single first came out it did well, but it’s built and built over the years. And that’s mainly because Mariah started to take the Christmas tie in seriously, and milks it all year long. There have remasters, remixes, albums of Xmas songs, and so on.
Well, it takes a lot of reindeer to live it up, and Mariah by now has her own farm of the magical horse like creatures stationed in Aspen at her disposal.