#FEATURE | Why Mariah Carey is more than just the ‘Queen of Christmas’
By Jini Dela Paz
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas…”
When people talk about their favorite Christmas songs, expect some to mention “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” A staple during the Yuletide season, it has broken numerous records and achieved legendary status, just like the person who wrote and performed it — Mariah Carey.
Who is Mariah Carey? The singer with the whistle register? Yes. The one who sang “Hero”? Yes. She’s defrosting now, isn’t she? She already did — it’s December.
Mariah is known as the “Queen of Christmas” because of her fair share of Christmas songs. However, with how closely associated she is with Christmas, people might think that Mariah only becomes relevant during the season — that there is nothing more to her than being a chanteuse with a diva attitude capitalizing on the holidays.
They are completely mistaken. There is more to Mariah than meets the eye.
The might of Mariah’s pen
You’re running out of sight
It’s so hard holding on
All alone in love
- “Alone In Love”
To the casual listener, “Alone In Love” from Mariah’s debut album would seem as a typical adult heartbreak song, but to the Lambily, Mariah’s fanbase, it is a historical piece of music. It is one of Mariah’s earliest written songs; in fact, she began working on it in eleventh grade.
Carey is one of the few prominent singer-songwriters in the music industry. She has full control over the creative process of her whole catalog, from song composition to music production. Out of her 19 record-breaking songs that topped the Billboard Hot 100, 18 of them were penned by Mariah herself.
Mariah has a talent of giving life to intense feelings — her songs showing instead of telling. People would normally say, “I have a crush on you,” but Mariah, with her signature imagery in songwriting, prefers this description:
Images of rapture
Creep into me slowly
As you’re going to my head
And my heart beats faster
When you take me over
Time and time and time again
- “Fantasy”
In her memoir entitled The Meaning of Mariah Carey (2020), the singer reveals songwriting as her way of processing her feelings. Being Mariah’s art since childhood, writing songs has become her means of survival.
Unfortunately, she is usually not given due credit for her songwriting ability, which she has constantly reminded people of since the dawn of her career.
Mariah attributes this unrecognition to the fact that she doesn’t fit the usual image of a songwriter: guitar on one hand and a pen on another.
Eventually, the clamor of the Lambily to recognize Mariah’s songwriting paid off. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2022, an honor bestowed upon the best songwriters in the music industry.
People say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but Mariah uses her writing as a weapon to navigate her life, career, and experiences.
Music and Mariah
Mariah has always loved music. As a little girl, her mother, a Juilliard-trained opera singer, instilled in her an appreciation of singing. It was her form of escapism.
She was raised in poverty and grew up in a dysfunctional household — her parents divorced, her brother violent and emotionally-troubled, and her sister into drugs and prostitution.
Young Mariah did everything to get into the music business. At only 12 years old, she began working as a background singer for other artists. She moved to the city alone right after high school in search of a singing career.
The catalyst for Mariah’s superstardom was her ties with Tommy Motola, the then-CEO of Columbia Records (now Sony Music). He signed Mariah to his record label in 1988, and two years later, the world first heard her voice in her record-breaking debut album.
In 1993, Mariah married the much older Tommy. Mariah described the union as “almost like being a prisoner.” The obsessive Tommy stifled Mariah’s freedom, banning her from going anywhere without him, dressing in revealing clothing, or releasing “urban” (that is, Black) music.
Mariah divorced Tommy in 1997 and released the album Butterfly that same year. Analogous to the album’s name, its main themes were liberation and maturity, as Mariah broke free from her captors. Now free from her ex-husband, she pursued writing more personal songs and freely expressing her sexuality in her looks.
Butterfly was not only the album that changed the course of Mariah’s life. After suffering a physical and emotional breakdown while working on her movie Glitter, her popularity began to wane. Mariah felt the need for a proper comeback for people to recognize her music again. This was embodied in her 2005 album, The Emancipation of Mimi.
In her memoir, Mariah says that the album chronicles her “personal freedom” from people trying to “harm . . . and use” her and her “trauma and fear.” She produced this album in the manner she wanted, showcasing her music, her style, her choices.
The album was more than successful, selling millions of copies worldwide in its first week — even more than Mariah’s previous records. It also contained the iconic track “We Belong Together,” which Billboard dubbed as the 2000s’ #1 Hot 100 Song of the Decade.
Music has always been part of Carey’s being. Her triumphs, struggles, and fight for freedom are reflected in her songs. Needless to say, music and Mariah can never be separated from each other. Her life is defined by her passion for music, and in turn, she forever changed music with her songs.
Black and white: Redefining music collaborations
“America’s Most Misunderstood Black Woman.”
“This is the one thing I hear most about you. . .They all say, ‘Oh, this is a white girl; she sounds Black! Oh no, it’s a Black girl, but she isn’t — she’s white!’. . .So, what are you?”
A fresh-faced Mariah Carey was being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey when the latter asked this question. It encapsulates the media’s obsession with Mariah’s racial identity, and the many times Mariah needed to explain her race to the public.
Not many people know that Mariah Carey is biracial. She was born to an Irish mother and an African-Venezuelan father, the former disowned by her family for marrying the latter.
Oprah continues: “Could you please stop discussing this girl’s race?”
Mariah grew up with an ambiguous identity. She didn’t have anybody to associate with since mixed-race families were rare during her youth. This uncertainty was expressed in her song “Outside” (1997):
Standing alone
Eager to just
Believe it’s good enough to be what
You really are
But in your heart
Uncertainty forever lies
And you’ll always be
Somewhere on the
Outside
- “Outside”
Mariah recalls, “I had to go through so much in my childhood just to feel accepted and feel worthy of existing on Earth because I felt so different from everybody else growing up, because I was biracial, because I was so ambiguous-looking and because we didn’t have the money to escape whatever the everyday realities of life were.”
Efforts to hide her Blackness began early in her career. Her record company initially controlled her looks and music so that she would appear less “urban” (that is, Black) and “more favorable” to the public.
Despite this, she has a deep reverence to Black culture. With influences from Black artists like Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, her repertoire incorporates genres from African-American music, like gospel, soul, hip-hop, and R&B.
Mariah also serves as a trailblazer for featuring rappers in mainstream music. Despite her record label dissuading her from doing so, she first did this in the remix for “Fantasy” where she collaborated with rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard. From then on, pop music has been intertwined with elements of hip-hop and R&B.
Without a doubt, Mariah changed the way people view Black music. Despite being stigmatized and gawked at her whole life due to her race, she proudly embraces her Blackness and inspires many people to do the same.
Mariah and Christmas
The start of November marks the start of the Mariah Carey season, much to the chagrin of people sick of her Christmas songs. Unfortunately for them, Mariah — with four Christmas albums, a ton of Christmas concerts, and a partridge in a pear tree — is now synonymous with Christmas.
Mariah’s appreciation for the season started when she was a child. In her memoir, she chronicles that she slipped away every Christmas from the harshness of her life into a fantasy “filled with Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen, and all the bells and trimmings a little girl’s dreams could hold.” Her guncles (gay uncles) supported her love of the season, staging extra-festive Christmas photoshoots.
Mariah brought her love for the season in making her first Christmas album, Merry Christmas (a simple title, but it cleverly has the initials M.C.). She wanted to do songs that were versatile and would stand the test of time, hence their retro feel. The album included both covers like “Joy To The World” and “O Holy Night” and original pieces like “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
Releasing the album was a risky move in Mariah’s career. In her memoir, she states: “It was almost unheard of for anyone — let alone such a young singer, so early in her career — to write and record an original Christmas song that was a legit smash hit.” Nevertheless, Tommy, her then-husband, convinced her to do so.
Little did everybody know, the album had not only been a “legit smash hit” — it became a timeless classic. Up to this day, her songs are still being regularly streamed across music platforms (many people call this an infinite money glitch).
In 2019, 25 years after the album came out, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” hit #1 in the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time. This was also the case for the three years that followed. To have an artist’s music playing — even topping the charts — decades after its release, oh, how legendary!
Mariah’s passion for Christmas cemented her career and established her as a music icon. Her faith has not only healed her soul but has also given the holiday more meaning and celebration.
So, who is Mariah Carey?
I had a vision of love
And it was all that you’ve given to me
I had a vision of love
And it was all that you turned out to be
- “Vision Of Love”
Once upon a time, a girl wades through a world of chaos, trying to find light in complete darkness. Through faith and music, she finds hope and solitude. The light she had been looking for has been in herself all this time — a vision of love.
That girl transformed into a talented, record-breaking virtuoso, maintaining a flourishing career of over 30 years. With a unique musicality she expresses in her songs, she has become a blueprint of the music industry.
Her story inspires many young aspiring artists not to let anyone take their dreams away. Through her inspirational songs, she calls on people to have faith in tough times.
So, who is Mariah Carey? She is more than just the “Queen of Christmas.” She is the epitome of a strong, independent woman.
Throughout her life, Mariah Carey has always possessed a vision of love. It is what gives her life meaning.
