First, let us take to the literature.
Some people think it is SO FUNNY to take Mariah/AIWFCIY "seriously;" the joke however is on them. Even when they know the joke is on them, the joke is still on them. Because as this article from The Atlantic on the song as "historical dialectic" points out, AIWFCIY has grossed $50 million since its 1994 release. That is more than all the readers of this blog will earn in our collective lifetimes.
This AV Club piece takes a deeper (and less tongue-in-cheek) dive, trying to pin down exactly what combination of melody, lyrics, and je ne sais quoi has landed AIWFCIY at the top of holiday airplay lists with the predictability of a four-hour Christmas afternoon nap. As track producer and longtime Carey collaborator Walter Afanasieff notes in the piece, "'It’s not like no one writes Christmas songs—everyone is trying to get a Christmas song. But for whatever reason ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ just became that song. It’s kind of something you never would have thought, and you can’t really explain why, and we feel lucky, because it was the last major song to enter that Christmas canon, and then the door slammed shut. It just closed.'" (Sorry not sorry Ariana Grande.)
Leave it to the Times to strike the correct tone: respectful, awed, and thankful. Pointing to her non-flashy turn in 2009's Precious, the piece gives a nod to the legitimacy of her acting career even while noting the loonier moments of her recently-aired Hallmark special, A Christmas Melody. However, the (deserved) permanence of AIWFCIY still sits at the piece's center, despite assessments such as: "She’s become to Christmas what the pumpkin spice latte is to fall: nutmeg, foam and caffeine. Meanwhile, her determination to be mandatorily anti-blues makes her a human flu shot."
Now, let us uncover some of the AIWFCIY gems which the Internet has to offer.
Here is AIWFCIY put through a MIDI converter then back through an mp3 converter. It recently brought a friend to tears.
Here is AIWFCIY in a minor key.
Here is AIWFCIY on Chatroulette.
I don't know what this is.
Here is an ASL version.
Finally, did you know that Mariah herself is responsible for (at least) EIGHT versions of the song? Jezebel put together this rundown. Special props to the So So Def Remix:
I "rediscovered" Mariah's 1994 Christmas album a couple of years ago; even as a lamb, I never really gave it much time until I put it on while writing cards one year and was blown away. So what do I think about AIWFCIY? Catchy, obvs. The vocals are weirdly far back in the mix in a way that the rest of the album (and her output at that time generally) was not, which I think plays into the retro sound that Afanasieff refers to in the AV Club piece. And I have to wonder if its debut before the advent of the Internet with all of its cynicism and instant ruining-of-everything/exaltation-of-everything is part of what has guaranteed its longevity. It is a vision of lost cultural self-love. And that is all that you've given to me.
ANYWAY. What's the big deal? Everyone knows that "O Holy Night" blows AIWFCIY out of the water.
