{"id":29322,"date":"2015-12-22T17:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T00:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com\/aznightlife\/?p=29322"},"modified":"2015-12-23T10:58:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T17:58:25","slug":"a-history-of-mariah-careys-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com\/aznightlife\/a-history-of-mariah-careys-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you\/","title":{"rendered":"A History of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/p>\n

One of the most popular Christmas songs to play every year during the holiday season is the powerfully sung \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You\u201d by one of the most familiar voices in the music industry. Mariah Carey\u2019s famous Christmas song has been heard for over two decades now, and has seen quite the rise in chart history. Released in 1994 as a promotional single for radio play, the song introduced Mariah Carey\u2019s first Christmas album, Merry Christmas<\/em>. Unlike most other singles during that time, \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You\u201d was not available as a single in retail stores, which, at that time was a requirement for songs to qualify on the\u00a0Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 chart. Because of this, the song failed to make the Hot 100 but charted on multiple airplay-based charts.<\/p>\n

Four years later in 1998, the Hot 100 welcomed non-commercially available songs and Carey\u2019s single hit No. 83 on the chart dated January 8, 2000. In 2012 the charts allowed older songs to chart if ranked in the top 50 and showed continued growth. After this, Carey\u2019s famous Christmas song rose to No. 21. This year, the single hits its highest rank ever at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dating January 2, 2016.<\/p>\n

The song was written by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff<\/a> and was the third song written for Merry Christmas<\/em> (after \u201cMiss You Most (At Christmas Time)\u201d and \u201cJesus Born On This Day\u201d). Afanasieff, who had previously worked with Carey on Emotions<\/em> and Music Box<\/em>, began to play a \u201crock \u2018n roll piano\u201d tune, which would eventually evolve into the now familiar song played on radios and in stores, restaurants and parties everywhere. With \u201cMiss You Most (At Christmas Time)\u201d and \u201cJesus Born On This Day\u201d falling into the Christmas song categories of ballad and traditional, respectively, \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You\u201d served to be the upbeat follow-up. As a result, Merry Christmas<\/em> has become the most successful Christmas album of all time.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard it enough times this year, you can listen below.<\/p>\n