Artist’s Perennial Masterpiece Earns RIAA Diamond Award and
Returns to Billboard Hot 100 while Securing #1 Spot on
Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs
“Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues” Premiering Globally Today on Apple TV+
New York, NY – December 3, 2021 – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” continues to make pop music history this year as the artist’s perennial yuletide standard (cowritten and coproduced by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff in 1994) keeps breaking new records while lighting up the 2021 holiday season.
This December, “All I Want for Christmas is You” became the first and only holiday single to take home the RIAA’s coveted Diamond Award (in recognition of ten million sales and streaming units in the United States).
Listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” here.
“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” said Mariah. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”
“Mariah is the Queen of Christmas,” said President of the Commercial Music Group at Sony Music Entertainment, Richard Story. “Her Sony Music family congratulates her on breaking yet another record, and continuing to make history as the first and only artist to achieve this incredible milestone.”
“Mariah Carey is one of the top Gold & Platinum awarded artists of all time, and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ becoming the only holiday song to achieve Diamond is a remarkable milestone forever etched in music history. Congratulations and happy holidays to Mariah and her amazing Sony team,” said Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.
Carey also spotlights the global fan-favorite “All I Want for Christmas is You” in the Apple TV+ smash-hit, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, with a show-stopping performance of the record-breaking song, along with her twins, son Moroccan and daughter Monroe. On the heels of this exciting news, Carey debuts her all-new holiday extravaganza Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues, premiering globally today and available now on Apple TV+.
On Tuesday, December 7, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) will make two Mariah Carey films, Live at the Tokyo Dome and First Vision, available for digital purchase and rental for the first time in the United States. Showcasing more than 80 minutes of music, including a stunning live version of “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Mariah Carey: Live at the Tokyo Dome captures the artist’s historic first concert in Japan, lensed during her 1996 Daydream World Tour. Mariah Carey: First Vision gives viewers an inside look at Mariah on the cusp of her meteoric rise to superstardom; this 1991 film contains early music videos, behind-the-scenes footage, an interview and songs from her very first live performance at New York’s intimate Tatou Club in 1990. Currently available in the US only, four additional Mariah Carey films–Fantasy: Mariah Carey at Madison Square Garden, Here is Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey Around the World and Mariah Carey: MTV Unplugged +3–will be released worldwide via SPE on December 7.
Billboard recently named Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” as the #1 record on their Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs list. The song first cracked the Top 10 of the Hot 100 in December 2017 and, in December 2019, 25 years after its original release, became the second holiday single ever to hit #1 on the Hot 100, breaking the record for longest span from release date to #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 again in 2020, giving it a five week total in the top slot, a new milestone for a holiday recording.
Recorded in August 1994 at The Hit Factory in New York, “All I Want for Christmas is You” was originally released in October 1994 as the first single from Mariah’s Merry Christmas album, a showcase for Mariah’s interpretations of familiar holiday songs alongside the new material she’d composed with co-writer Walter Walter Afanasieff. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” went on to become one of the best-selling singles (of any genre) of all time and the best-selling holiday ringtone in the United States for several years running.
When “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 on the Hot 100 in 2019, it was Mariah’s 19th claim on the top spot, a record for a solo recording artist; when her holiday single hit #1 the following year, Mariah became the first artist to have a Hot 100 # 1 in four separate decades (the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s).
Having charted every holiday season since its original release, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”–which The New Yorker called “one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon”–has become an essential seasonal standard that continues to bring the spirit of Christmas to the hearts of music lovers the world over.
“All I Want for Christmas is You” is Carey’s biggest international success, topping the charts in twenty-six countries including Australia, Canada, France and Germany. In 2020, the holiday classic topped the charts in the United Kingdom for the first time, spending a record 69 weeks in the UK Top 40 before reaching #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” is the all-time best-selling Christmas single by a female artist and one of the top-selling physical singles in music history. It’s the first holiday ringtone to be certified double platinum by the RIAA.
For More Information Contact:
Sony Music / Legacy Recordings
Gabby Gibb – Gabby.Gibb@sonymusic.com
Mariah Carey
Chris Chambers – chris@thechambergroup.com
Edwin Tettah – edwin.tetteh@thechambergroup.com
