What’s a holiday season without multiple gifts from the Christmas queen herself, Mariah Carey? Not only has the pop icon released a new Christmas special on Apple TV+ today, but it features a new collaborative song with Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson.
All three vocal powerhouses come together for an updated version of Carey’s 2010 original “Oh Santa!”, and it’s definitely something right off a holiday wishlist. The trio also appear in the corresponding music video, each artist outfitted in dazzling, festive attire, naturally. Who needs a PS5 when you have this kind of dream team under the tree?
On Instagram, Grande gushed over the opportunity to team up with such accomplished singers. “I am no longer in my body,” she wrote. Same, tho.
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Over on Billboard, Carey spoke about the joint effort and the fun they all had recording it,
“I wrote ‘Oh Santa!’ for my album Merry Christmas II You, which was sort of the follow-up to my first Christmas album — we have several [Laughs] — and so I think it was all about the actual event, of course, of doing ‘Oh Santa!’ with Jennifer and Ari, but it was also like, how do I see this as a producer?” Carey previously told Billboard of the collaboration. “How do I see these vocals having different textures, what are they? Because originally, I was blending with myself, which that’s kind of one of my favorite things, but it was cool to be able to work with the different vocal textures and play around with it and reimagine it. So that’s what happened. And visually, in the special, it really does feel like a girl group moment. I think we all had a good time with it. That was the fun part about it.”
Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special is out now on Apple TV+. Earlier this year, Carey dropped an autobiography called The Meaning of Mariah Carey, in which she revealed that she once recorded a ’90s grunge rock album. Of course, all these numerous projects come as Carey continues to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Merry Christmas, her first holiday album. Its iconic single, “All I Want for Christmas is You”, topped the charts last winter for the very first time since its original release more than two decades ago.
As for Grande, she just dropped new album Positions and joined Thundercat live at the Adult Swim Festival. Hudson, meanwhile, will soon portray Aretha Franklin in an upcoming biopic about the music legend.
