If the forces of commerce haven't completely secularized Christmas, Mariah Carey seems ready to finish the job. I, at least, can imagine a Nativity scenario in which the wise men reach Bethlehem and find Ms. Carey's face glowing in the manger. Right now her 21-year-old Yuletide jam "All I Want for Christmas Is You" stands atop Billboard's Holiday 100 chart, where it's been, on and off (but mostly on), since the chart appeared in 2011.
It has also hovered near or at the top of choices for bricks-and-mortar shopping, according to the retail-media-experience provider PlayNetwork. (The Shins' cover of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" demoted it to No. 2.) That's also her position on YouTube's top 20 Christmas songs of the month. (The "superfestive" version she recorded with Justin Bieber is in seventh place.) No. 1 on YouTube is "Mary, Did You Know?" by Pentatonix, the a cappella outfit with a best-selling Christmas album.
Ms. Carey's pursuit of winter dominion is more thorough than those of the other acts. Last week, she completed her Christmas residency at the 2,900-seat Beacon Theater in New York, the second of what I hope will be many. And on Saturday the Hallmark Channel unveiled "A Christmas Melody", a peculiar romantic family comedy that Ms. Carey directed and only kind of stars in. And given how often you can still hear her 1995 hit "Always Be My Baby" while standing in a checkout line, Ms. Carey might just own a chunk of the year-round shopping experience, too.
This is all a savvy bid for, if not relevance, then at least seasonal permanence. Even if it's for only two months, Ms. Carey wants us to want her, to need her. She's become to Christmas what the pumpkin spice latte is to fall: nutmeg, foam and caffeine. Meanwhile, her determination to be mandatorily anti-blues makes her a human flu shot.
This is to say that she's also a genius. Who knows where Taylor Swift and Rihanna will be in 20 years? If they need it, though, Ms. Carey is devising a road map for the future. Her popularity may rise, spectacularly crash, then rise again, as may the quality of her artistry. But she's lasted. And not only by heading to Las Vegas for one of those long, lucrative engagements that turn legend to kitsch. ("Mariah Carey #1 to Infinity" ends a 26-show run at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in late February.) She has endured by attempting to colonize a holiday.
Most stars, in being synonymous with Christmas, can become partially encased in classicality - whether they're Nat King Cole or Brenda Lee, Wham! or the Waitresses. Ms. Carey is trying to be something more with this holiday version of herself: transcendent, ludicrous, fun.
Jokey brand extension is one way to enjoy "A Christmas Melody". In telling the story of Kristen (Lacey Chabert), a widowed single mom whose Los Angeles fashion boutique goes bust, the movie is as blandly watchable as everything else in Hallmark's Christmas lineup, which includes titles like "I'm Not Ready for Christmas", "Merry Matrimony" and "'Tis the Season for Love". But Ms. Carey's participation makes the generic badness of "A Christmas Melody" a touch better than its neighbors. She treats herself like a woman who's come to family entertainment from Venus.
Ms. Carey has cast herself as the villain: Melissa McKean-Atkinson, Kristen's former classmate, head of the PTA, consummate mean girl, big fan of pearls. Ms. Carey's idea of ho-hum suburbanism and vicious glamour are a riot. Melissa catches Kristen up on her life thus: "Married now. Twelve glorious years. Three children. Huge four-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, two-story." The pearls give you one sense of the character's ridiculousness. Another sense? The fact that the only modifier the children get is "three".
It's as if Ms. Carey has slurped the same hooch that Hoda and Kathie Lee do a lot of mornings on "Today". This portrait is almost as loony as whatever Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are up to in "Sisters", and only half as condescending. Ms. Carey isn't pretending to know the average woman. That's part of her Christmastime appeal. She's not an elf, Mrs. Claus, or that poor soul who's married to Bob Cratchit. She's a version of her spoiled-brat alter ego, Bianca, traipsing among the mortals who've purchased, say, Ms. Carey's pavé crystal hoop earrings with four charms, on Home Shopping Network. That's how holiday she is.
Ms. Carey's performance as the social worker in Lee Daniels's "Precious" proves she can act, and strongly. But on Hallmark she deploys herself only sparingly - stingily, I'd say. And when she does, it's weird. She's lit like a sci-fi planet on the verge of explosion. And rarely does she share the frame with other actors. Most of the time, she's alone in a shot, looking off somewhere to the right. I imagine that's a strategy to heighten Melissa's obnoxiousness. But the effect more or less puts her in a different product - specifically anything starring Agnes Moorehead.
This attempt to do camp in "A Christmas Melody" means she's missed her own point. Or, that Ms. Carey, who's in her mid-40s, suspects that camp is all she has. But "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is much more than that. Ms. Carey wrote it with Walter Afanasieff. They gave it sleigh bells and the sonic architecture of a textbook Phil Spector production.
So semi-scientifically, the song is probably impossible to resist. It's endured partly because of the timelessness of its arrangement, which the AV Club unpacked a few weeks ago. But it's also a masterpiece of generosity. That's an aspect of Ms. Carey that's easily overlooked because she's also the woman who, in music videos, has been guilty of rigging her appeal by surrounding herself with goofier, rounder, less well-lit co-stars.
Listening to the original version, you realize that the mix places the emphasis on the backing vocalists, who begin Ms. Carey's sentences or seem to complete her thoughts. This is the forever part of the song. You realize you're not really singing with her, but with the backup folks. For instance, when they belt and hold the rising "And I", so do you. It's one of the happiest kinds of singalongs because the song doesn't aim to overwhelm you with the singer's prowess (another departure for Ms. Carey). It makes room on her sleigh for you.
In 2012, Ms. Carey performed the song with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, with classroom instruments in a tiny room on "The Tonight Show". This might be the best of the show's viral collaborations, just for the way the reconsideration nails the inexorable joy of the original song, which is also written all over Ms. Carey's face. When it's time for the "and I", her backing vocalists (Mr. Fallon and the Roots) expand to include a row of four kids who've snapped into the frame from the floor, like Muppets or pictures in a pop-up book. It's been viewed well over 17 million times on YouTube. About a million of those belong to me.
Ms. Carey has been wise to extend her Christmas empire. Only Cookie Lyon would dare attempt to snatch the holiday from her. But Ms. Carey didn't need the Beacon Theater or a droopy Hallmark movie to stake her claim. She wrote an unkillable song, and no matter what the charts eventually say, that will always be our baby.
(The New York Times)
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