Saturday 22 December 2007

Showdown: Mariah Carey vs. Scrooges

The Conflict: Can Mariah Carey's classic holiday song melt the cold hearts of Christmas Scrooges? So, the past couple of Showdowns we've examined have been entirely theoretical, but today we actually have some life experience related to the matter at hand.

We have long believed in the magical powers of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Released 13 years ago, it's the only Christmas song to reach iTune's top 10 most downloaded list, and it continually tops Billboard charts every December. Love Actually, one of our favorite holiday movies, seems to be based entirely on this song.

If commercial success weren't enough, there's that warm fuzzy feeling we get every time we hear the simple chimes of a xylophone at the very beginning of the song. It gives us just enough time to shush everyone so they can enjoy the greatness about to play out.

From there it just gets better, the slow start, the piano that speeds the song up, the backup vocals, the lamest bass line ever, the jingle bells, Mariah's voice reaching octaves inaccessible to humans and, most of all, the title lyric that fills our heart with love for love.

We thought this song was enough to cure even the most extreme cases of bah humbuggery. But something happened this past weekend that changed the world as we knew it. While at a deejay-it-yourself holiday party, we thought it would be okay to bring on the Christmas cheer with the best holiday song ever... because we attended the holiday party to celebrate the holidays, right? But no, completely shut down. It was exclusively a Neutral Milk Hotel kind of night. No festive songs at all.

Based on experience, it looks like the win goes to the Scrooges. Honestly though, we don't want to live in a world where there's no "All I Want for Christmas Is You" at holiday parties. We're going to go on naively believing everyone is as into this song as they should be. In fact, we bet Mariah sends plenty of indie-Scrooge hearts aflutter when there's no one else around.

Are we wrong? Are there any other songs out there that you believe can warm the coldest of hearts? Has anyone else unexpectedly experienced the Mariah Carey backlash?

(E! Online)



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