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Mariah Carey: “Merry Christmas"

A certain type of bitchy gay man will say Mariah Carey produced only one great album, her debut, “Mariah Carey,” and, after that, the fabled five-octave range disappeared, and Carey became boring. Not true. “Emotions,” the second album, is a work of greatness. And there’s the Christmas album.

Sometimes, my husband wants to play Taylor Swift’s Christmas songs, and I cringe. As much as I enjoy Ms. Swift, how can you compare that stuff with the works of Mariah Carey?

A few things to note about Mariah’s Christmas album:

*The first four songs are MURDERERS' ROW. We are talking about one titanic achievement after the next. “Silent Night,” “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “O Holy Night,” “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).” We are putty in Mariah’s hands. If ever there were time for a mic drop, it’s at the close of these first four songs.

*”All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the last time in American history that someone authored a bona fide juggernaut holiday song. A song that became part of our pop-culture DNA. No one has done it since. As a holiday song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has one major rival, in terms of pop-culture dominance, and that’s “Thriller.” Who wrote “All I Want”? Mariah. Mariah did. She became a singer-songwriter when she was still in high school.

*Among Mariah’s influences is gospel--especially Aretha Franklin and the Clark sisters--and you hear that influence when you get to “Jesus, Born on This Day” and “Jesus, What a Wonderful Child.”

*People talk about Alice Munro’s authority on the page. How there’s a sense of supreme self-confidence, in any given sentence--how you can start *anywhere* and know, pretty quickly, you’re in good hands. I feel that way with Mariah’s Christmas album. Near-perfection--start to finish. Attention must be paid.
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