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Pop

Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ Certified 16X Platinum

The singer's "Shake It Off" and "Obsessed" singles also got new certifications.

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey

Dennis Leopold

Mariah Carey has a million reasons to be thankful this holiday season. In fact, the Queen of Christmas has 16 million reasons according to the RIAA, which recently announced that Carey’s yuletide classic single, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” has been certified 16x Platinum.

The perennial holiday favorite — which was once again at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending Dec. 7 — has had a wild ride to its mega-platinum status. The song, which was originally released in 1994 as the lead single from the singer’s debut Christmas album, Merry Christmas, was not certified gold (500,000 copies) until December 2005.


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From there, it took a decade-and-a-half for it to bump up to platinum (1 million) status in October 2019. Then the rocket ride began, with the song gaining 6x Platinum status that year, during which the track reached its highest-charting status on the Hot 100 to that point, rising to No. 3 on the chart in January 2019; by December of that year, “All I Want” hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the first time and to date it has spent 15 weeks atop the chart.

The song hit 8X Platinum the next December and crossed the Diamond mark (10 million) by December 2021. From there, it was off the the races for the song that has been a reliable holiday No. 1 ever since, hitting 12X Platinum in December 2022, 14X Platinum in December 2023 and 16X on Friday.

Carey will need to make room for a few other new plaques as well, as her 2005 Emancipation of Mimi single “Shake It Off” reached 2X Platinum status on December 6 and her 2009 Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel lead single “Obsessed” hit 4X Platinum last week as well, 15 years after it first reached Platinum status.

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Carey is in the midst of her Christmas Time tour, which is slated to hit PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh on Wednesday (Dec. 11); the annual holiday outing is slated to wind down on Dec. 17 with a show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.

This article was originally published by Billboard U.S.

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Val Blavatnik
Courtesy WMG

Val Blavatnik

Business News

Val Blavatnik to Oversee Warner Music Canada in New Role at Warner Music Group

Blavatnik will oversee Warner Music Canada as managing director of Warner Music North America, U.K. and Corporate Development at WMG. As part of a slew of executive announcements, Simon Robson will be leaving the company, while Alejandro Duque takes the top international role.

Val Blavatnik, the 28-year-old son of Warner Music Group majority owner and vice chairman Len Blavatnik, has been named managing director of Warner Music North America, U.K. and Corporate Development at the Warner Music Group, the company announced Friday (Sept. 25). In his new role the younger Blavatnik, who has held several roles at the company in recent years, and has been a board member since 2023, expects to “unify and drive business and operational strategy across these markets while guiding the company’s investment strategy to support growth,” according to a press release.

The Blavatnik announcement is part of a flurry of new executive announcements that CEO Robert Kyncl made this morning. In addition, Atlantic Music Group chairman/CEO Elliot Grainge will take on ADA in the U.S. as its new chairman, while Alejandro Duque, who has held the dual roles of president of Warner Latin and president of ADA since last July, has been named president of Warner Music International, adding Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa under his oversight. (Duque will continue to oversee ADA outside the U.S.) Zach Friedman, currently COO at Atlantic Music Group, will add the title of vice chair of ADA U.S. to his resume.

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