Melissa Kacar

"We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey   was released in 2005 as the second single of her tenth album,  The Emancipation of Mimi . It is widely credited with reviving her career in the new decade, following her chart dominance throughout the 1990s. It now serves as a testament to her strength artistry that she turned such a challenging period into a story of redemption and perseverance.  It also served as a significant new chapter in Mariah's career, following the release of two commercial failures with  Glitter  in 2001 and  Charmbracelet  in 2002. These records were released at a particularly low point in her personal and professional life, which was highly publicized at the time and she has since opened up about through the years. Despite these struggles, Mariah's resilience through that difficult period of her life shined through so brightly in her 2005 comeback album  The Emancipation of Mimi . This album fully represented a rebirth of Mariah a...

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 co...

"Open Wide" // Inhaler The title track of Inhaler' s upcoming album Open Wide is such a mesmerizing and hypnotic performance from the band. I love the psych rock elements incorporated throughout, it is truly one of their best songs yet and I cannot wait to hear the rest of their new album very soon! "Dance The Night (Live from the Royal Albert Hall)" // Dua Lipa At Dua Lipa 's recent show at Royal Albert Hall, she performed "Dance The Night" live for the first time ever! I cannot think of a better debut live performance of this amazing song than with an entire orchestra at Royal Albert Hall! This song played a pivotal role in  Barbie   last year and she brought the glittering energy to life with this performance so well.   The entire album is so amazing and magical - it may honestly be one of my favorite live albums ever! Every song is so masterfully performed by everyone involved. These arrangements completely elevated the perfection of the ori...

Justin Bieber 's  Under The Mistletoe  features several original holiday songs, as well as covers of Christmas classics with a unique twist. I love the way so much of his personality and musical influences is within this music too, with blends of pop and R&B. There is also so much whimsy and joy for the season embedded into every single song. The album was inspired by his personal favorite holiday music and the artists that made them. "I just picked my favorite Christmas songs. I picked 'Silent Night,' I picked 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,' because everyone loves those songs. Those are classics," Justin told  MTV News in 2011. "And then, for songs that we wrote, we wanted to make enough new songs for people to hear new music and not just hear some classics. There's a lot of new stuff on there." This album also features several collaborations throughout, some of which were interesting creative decisions that many probably wouldn't h...

✴⭑"Santa, tell me if you're really there"⭑✴ "Santa Tell Me" by Ariana Grande perfectly captures the heart of holiday the season! I love that so much of her personality and personal influences shine through in this song to create this Christmas classic. This song is such a perfect example of how great modern holiday music can be and her influence has been heard throughout so much that has been released in the past decade.  "Santa Tell Me" went on to be one of the highest streamed songs in her entire discography, surpassing over a billion streams on Spotify . As of 2024, it is the third highest streamed Christmas song on the platform too! It's very rare for there to be great original holiday music released like this, but Ari completely dominates that category in every regard. "Santa Tell Me" went on to be the defining Christmas song of the 2010's and continues to rise in popularity every single year. It quickly went on to become an ann...

Ariana Grande has reached the incredible milestone of having 14 songs reach over a billion streams each on Spotify! Over the past 10 years, Ariana has amassed over 39 billion streams on the platform and has become a member of the coveted Spotify Billions Club more than any other female artist. This achievement comes as no surprise, as Ariana has been a streaming titan for over a decade and was one of the first to embrace the early streaming era of the early 2010's long before many of her peers in the industry did. "It's a really absurd number – I can’t really wrap my head around the number," Ariana said in the Billions Club episode. "This really shook me a little." She has always been one of my favorite artists and this felt like the perfect time to rank all of her record-breaking songs that are in the Spotify Billions Club, as of February 2024. All of these are staples in her long and ever-growing list of hits. Several more songs are already on the brink o...