Merry Christmas by Mariah Carey // 30th Anniversary Album Review + red vinyl
Over the past thirty years, Mariah Carey has fully solidified herself as the Queen of Christmas because of her timeless renditions of holiday classics, as well as modern hits that define the season every year. Although she has made so many great albums throughout her decades long career, Merry Christmas is undoubtedly one of the brightest shining moments of her entire discography. It showcases a versatile range of influences, with much of this album drawing from her love of gospel and soul music, as well as pop and R&B. The entire album is so full of joy and is essential listening every year during the holiday season.
Merry Christmas was Mariah Carey's first holiday album and her fourth overall, released at a major peak in her career in 1994. It featured covers of classic Christmas songs, as well as three of the greatest original holiday songs ever. Even though she was one of the biggest artists at that time, Merry Christmas wasn't guaranteed to be a commercial success on it's own, as it was very rare at that point for young, modern artists to record holiday music. "Back then, you didn't have a lot of artists with Christmas albums," her songwriting partner Walter Afanasieff said in an interview with Billboard in 2014. "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.'" Merry Christmas would go on to redefine the art of making great, modern, holiday music and inspire countless artists to do the same.
She wrote the original songs with her long-time collaborator Walter Afanasieff, who also produced all of the songs with her. The most notable of all is of course the inescapable classic "All I Want For Christmas Is You", an original song that has become a holiday staple for the past three decades. They wrote it together in only fifteen minutes, little did they know it's success would far surpass any other Christmas song in history, as well as become one of the best-selling singles of all time. "We didn’t have an inkling of that," Walter continued in an interview with Billboard. "That’s not what the time was. That’s what made it such a modern phenomenon: Because it’s not like 'White Christmas' or 'Jingle Bells' - the song doesn’t have any of those traditional elements, but it became a huge pop hit." In the past three decades, it has become an inescapable cultural landmark that somehow continues to just get bigger and bigger each year.
Reflecting back on when she wrote the song in a 2024 interview with The Standard, Mariah said, "It came to me quickly. I was working on my Casio keyboard, writing with my partner Walter Afanasieff, and the opening ‘ding, ding, ding’ part came and after that, it was quick." She later added that even after all these years of performing "All I Want For Christmas Is You", she still thinks to herself, "I can't believe I wrote this song".
The enduring success of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" also helped Mariah become the first artist in history to hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 across four different decades - the 90's, 00's, 10's and 20's. It has charted every year since 1994, but it finally hit number 1 on the charts 25 years after this release in 2019. It has reached the top every single year since, as of 2024.
Although "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is undoubtedly the biggest song off this album, Merry Christmas is filled with so many other beautiful songs too. She intentionally went into the creation of this album wanting to create a festive album that is timeless and not necessarily indicative of the music trends of the 1990's. She looked back at the holiday music she loved throughout her life, most of which was from the 1960's, and incorporated the traits that make that music so timeless.
She has been very open about how important her faith is to her, which inspired some of the gospel elements throughout the record and her inclusion of classic holiday hymns. Her covers of songs like "O Holy Night", "Joy To The World", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" are so gorgeous and are very special moments of this record. Her other original tracks, "Miss You Most (At Christmas Time)" and "Jesus Born on This Day" are also very heartfelt, stunning performances from Merry Christmas too.
I also absolutely love some of the other classic Christmas carols that she covered like "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" - her covers are the definitive versions for me. They exude so much pure joy and happiness that always puts me in the festive mood. Of course, her incredible vocals are the star of every single song on this album - no one even comes close to the power and musical talent she holds!
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of this iconic album, I thought it would be fun to share the special vinyl I have for it in my collection. This is an absolute essential album for any record collection and it's one of my favorites to listen to every December. Merry Christmas was released for the first time on vinyl in 2015 following the 20th anniversary of the album. I believe I got this copy as a Christmas gift sometime around 2018, which was also the first Mariah Carey album I added to my vinyl collection. I grew up listening to her music with my mom and we have always been such big fans of all her work. I also have so many great holiday memories attached to this album specifically, so this is very special to me.
I have the classic red variant of the album on vinyl, which is so vibrant and festive! I believe it was purchased from Urban Outfitters at the time, but there are now many other variants available anywhere records are sold. It also features a beautiful inner sleeve full of pictures from the album's photoshoot. I love the design so much, it captures the spirit of the music so perfectly.
If you are interested in learning more about this time in her life and the making of these songs, I highly recommend reading her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, to find out more about her process and perspective on writing and recording these songs. She also has one of the most fascinating careers in the industry, so it is a really interesting music biography of her life so far.
Mariah released another Christmas album in 2011, along with several other singles and EPs throughout the years, which I would love to one day add to my record collection too! I have quite a few other holiday records in my vinyl collection, but Merry Christmas will always be one of my very favorites. The success of this album is absolutely warranted, it is truly one of the best ever made!
Thanks for reading! This post is apart of a new series on my blog focusing on a few of my favorite holiday vinyl records, I'd love for you to read about more of them here. I have so much more exciting new music content to come, I hope you'll come back soon to check it out!
I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! Merry Christmas! 🎄
All photos are my own!
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