All I Want for Christmas Is You

"All I Want for Christmas Is You" is a song by American singer Mariah Carey from her fourth studio album and first holiday album, Merry Christmas (1994). Written and produced by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, the song was released as the lead single from the album on October 29, 1994, by Columbia Records. The track is an uptempo love song that includes bell chimes, backing vocals, and synthesizers. It has received critical acclaim, with The New Yorker describing it as "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon". The song has become a Christmas standard, with a significant rise in popularity each December. The song was a success when first released, reaching number six on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart and number two in the United Kingdom and Japan. The advent of music streaming has led to renewed success for the single, which now annually re-enters charts worldwide in the weeks before Christmas and has reached number one in over 25 countries, partially due to it being added to popular seasonal playlists. The single has broken the record for the longest gap between release and reaching number one in both the United States and the United Kingdom, 25 and 26 years respectively. The song has sold 16 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. In 2023 the song was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry. Background and writing Following the success of her 1993 album Music Box, Carey and her management at Columbia Records — including Carey's then-husband, Tommy Mottola, head of Columbia's parent label Sony Music Entertainment — began planning further projects. The group discussed recording a Christmas album, but hesitated, as such albums were typically released towards when artists' careers are waning. Carey's songwriting partner of over four years, Walter Afanasieff, said: "Back then, you didn't have a lot of artists with Christmas albums. It wasn't a known science at all back then, and there was nobody who did new, big Christmas songs. So we were going to release it as kind of an everyday, 'Hey, you know, we're putting out a Christmas album. No big deal.'"