Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ a money-making machine

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In news that will surprise absolutely no one, Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You jingled its way back to the top of the charts this week. It’s a feat the Queen of Christmas has repeated for the fifth straight year on Billboard’s Hot 100.

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Since its release in 1994, hearing the holiday staple has been inescapable as soon as the calendar slips over to Nov. 1. Every year, as most parents are still sorting their kids’ Halloween candy, Carey makes it official, when just after midnight she posts on social media that “it’s time” as the song begins to play. Nearly three decades later, the carol is still one of the most beloved Christmas tracks ever recorded.

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“When it first came out, it was more of a gradual thing,” Carey told Entertainment Weekly in 2019 reflecting on the track’s enduring success. “It was popular, but it didn’t have what it has now. I feel like people have grown up with the song and it’s become a part of people’s lives in terms of the way they celebrate the holidays. That makes me feel really proud as someone that loves Christmas so much.”

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“That song is just embedded in history now,” 16-time Grammy-winning composer and producer David Foster said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. “It’s embedded in Christmas. When you think of Christmas right now, you think of that song.”

But in addition to being an enduring holiday hit you can’t escape between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, All I Want For Christmas Is You is also a big money maker for the songstress.

According to data obtained by Billboard [via Forbes], in 2021, plays and downloads of the song generated about $1.55 million for Carey, with her label Sony pocketing an additional $2.95 million.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Billboard estimated the song hauled in millions more outside of the U.S. pushing the track’s total earning power to over $6 million.

Carey’s holiday money bag this year included revenue from her 13-date Merry Christmas One and All tour. She’s also earned a nice paycheque thanks to two filmed specials — last year’s Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All! and 2020’s Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special.

This holiday season, Will Page, Spotify’s former chief economist and author of the book Pivot, predicts the song will exceed $100 million in earnings.

“By most objective measures,” Bennett tells the AP, “it’s the most successful Christmas song of all time.”

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Of course, Carey doesn’t get all of the dough. She splits the revenue with the song’s co-writer, Walter Afanasieff, and Sony. But she said the song is her “baby.”

“I wrote the melody and lyrics; he played and did additional writing, which is great, but it’s my baby,” Carey told USA Today in November 2019. “It was my thing.”

“I just sat down, decorated a little tree and put on It’s a Wonderful Life and tried to get into that mood,” she elaborated in an interview with Cosmopolitan that same year. “Then I sat in this small room with a keyboard and started doing little melodies and stuff.”

But the genesis of the song has been contentious. There have been two lawsuits filed over it, including last month, when songwriters Andy Stone and Troy Powers sued Carey and Afanasieff for $20 million, claiming the pair copied their 1989 country song, All I Want for Christmas is You. This comes after they launched a similar suit last year, which was later dropped.

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Afanasieff has also disputed Carey’s claims that she was the track’s main songwriter.

“Mariah has been very wonderful, positive and a force of nature. She’s the one that made the song a hit and she’s awesome. But she definitely does not share credit where credit is due,” he told Variety in 2019.

After releasing trio of multi-platinum albums — including her 1990 self-titled debut, 1991’s Emotions and 1993’s Music Box — the idea of making a Christmas record was far from being Carey’s radar. Last year, the five-time Grammy winner told W Magazine that she was initially cool to the idea of recording a holiday album back in 1994, saying that she didn’t think it was the right fit for her at the time.

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“It was very early in my career, and I thought it was a little early for me to be doing that, but I was like, ‘Well, I love Christmas.’ I had some very sad Christmases as a child, but I always try to find the bright light there.”

The album’s most famous song was hatched, Carey continued, when she started plucking away at a keyboard at home.

“I didn’t want it to feel specific to any era, so we didn’t use sounds that were happening at that time. That way, it would feel classic and timeless.”

But Carey conceded that she never expected All I Want For Christmas Is You to become the chart-topping juggernaut that it did.

“I could never have imagined that it would become such a major part of my life,” she said.

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X: @markhdaniell

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