00:00Hi and welcome to the holidays. Real quick though, we need to talk about how
00:05Mariah Carey owns Christmas. All I Want For Christmas Is You is one of the
00:09all-time best-selling songs, Christmas and otherwise. You are the queen of
00:12Christmas. A singer who has become synonymous with the holidays. Her song
00:16All I Want For Christmas Is You is a classic. 14 million copies plus sold
00:21around the world. I know you said that. Wow, I didn't even know that. We would play the song for
00:25you here, it's just too
00:26expensive to license. That's part of the story. With just that one song, Mariah Carey
00:32is banking on Christmas and that's not something many artists can say. Think of
00:38all the artists who put out Christmas albums. Very few of those songs, if any, go
00:43on to become Christmas classics. All I Want For Christmas Is You is the only
00:48Christmas song to be written in the last 20 years that's gone on to be a
00:51Christmas standard. It's the most downloaded Christmas song of all time.
00:55It's the most downloaded ringtone of all time. And it's the most popular Christmas
01:00song on Spotify. The success of All I Want For Christmas isn't surprising. Mariah
01:06was the biggest selling female artist of the 90s. She's written or co-written more
01:11of her number one hits than any other female composer. And she's produced more
01:16number one songs than any other woman. To pay homage to Mariah, I sat down with
01:21composer and artist Luke Dubois in true Mariah fashion, on couches, lounging.
01:27The reason why it's significant for Mariah Carey is she co-wrote the song, she co-produced
01:31the song, she's the performer of records. She's getting a much larger royalty off that song.
01:37The record industry historically was working on the backs of a lot of people who weren't getting paid as much
01:44as they were due.
01:45And that includes women, that includes artists of color, that includes anybody who had anything to do
01:51with the pop industry that weren't in the most managerial position.
01:56I stand before you as a doormat. Oh, I mean a female entertainer. Thank you for
02:05acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in the face of blatant misogyny,
02:15sexism, constant bullying, and relentless abuse. Mariah Carey managed to succeed despite a system
02:23that disincentivizes artists of color, disincentivizes women, disincentivizes, frankly,
02:28like the singer-songwriter, where the performer really is just a hired gun. You're not really
02:32supposed to be in charge of yourself when you're the singer. And it's a Christmas song. It's this
02:37enduring revenue stream. The song brings in 500k a year, and that doesn't even include the times
02:44that she performs it. It's her biggest international success with over 16 million dollars in sales.
02:50That was why I did this album, just really, you know, for myself. And it was fun. I wrote the
02:54song.
02:55I want to make an album that I can wrap my presents to, and every year I'll have a Christmas
02:59album of my
03:00own songs. When you record a Christmas album, it's around for the rest of your life. It's something that
03:05people can play for years and years to come. Of course, you always hope that people will like
03:09them and they'll become classics. So whether you love or hate this song, can we all give some major
03:15props to Mariah? She navigated an exploitative system and drove through centuries of Christmas
03:22music to give us a new Christmas classic. So the next time you hear this song, think of how awesome
03:28Mariah Carey is.
