JULY 19, 2007
"Hello! I know I haven't called you since 1802. Actually, I haven't called anyone. I've been really, really busy and when I do get free time, I'm on vocal rest so I can like get back in the studio for 20 billion hours. So everybody's mad at me but whatever (laughs). I did get a couple of days of vacation in Capri which was a stone groove and I was happy 'cause I haven't been there since I was recording the Mimi record like three years ago. So that was nice for me..." Read this one & more messages from Mariah!

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Since: January 23 2004
Maintained by: Alison
Version 14: I Am Free
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Stats: online |

Italy
Official Italian Albums Chart

The race to win the Christmas celebrity fragrance stakes is hotting up.

With December 25 rapidly approaching, Katie Price, the pin-up formerly known as Jordan, is currently the front runner. The name of her scent - Stunning.

Hot on her heels is US songstress Christina Aguilera. The Grammy award-winner is one of the hottest properties in pop, and it’s not hard to see why.

In third place is another US diva, Mariah Carey. Her fragrance is simply called M. Presumably that’s M for Mariah, not M for money.

UK supermodel Kate Moss currently lies fourth with a scent that bears her name.

Kate, from Croydon, also has her own range of clothing at High Street chain Top Shop.

Kylie Minogue’s offering is Sweet Darling - which is pretty much how her millions of fans see her.

As you would expect, Posh and Becks are in the running with their Intimately Beckham range.

Shh, don’t tell anyone but the 2006 best seller, ex-BB contestant Jade Goody, is down to no 7 this year after her fall from grace.

Sex And The City star Sarah Jessica Parker is offering a perfume to Covet.

Wayne Rooney’s girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin is another contender with a fragrance named after herself. No doubt Manchester United star Wayne would say that’s entirely appropriate.

US singer and fashion designer Gwen Stefani has one L of a fragrance, as you might expect. But can she improve on 10th place?

Source: Sky ShowBiz

Eight of the current Top 40 hits are time-honoured festive evergreens. What is it about these songs that keeps people buying them? Ciar Byrne tells their stories

All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey

Chart position: Reached No 2 in the UK singles chart in December 2004, losing out to East 17`s "Stay Another Day". Currently at No 8.

Written by:: Mariah Carey and Walter Afsanieff for the singer`s fifth album, Merry Christmas – the best-selling Christmas album of all time.

Background: Described by The New Yorker magazine as `one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon`, the song has been covered by My Chemical Romance, Samantha Mumba and the Cheetah Girls, and was sung by Olivia Olson for the soundtrack to the romantic comedy Love Actually. The song reached the top 10 in several countries including Japan and in 2006 became the best-selling holiday ring tone of all time in the US.

Memorable lyrics: `I don`t want a lot for Christmas/ There is just one thing I need/ I don`t care about the presents/ Underneath the Christmas tree... All I want for Christmas is / You.`

Source: The Independent

Spain
Official Spanish Music DVD Chart
8. The Adventures of Mim (new entry)

Ireland
Official Irish Singles Chart
22. All I Want For Christmas Is You (up 12)

Source: February Sky

It isn't December until Mariah Carey puts on her bright red knit hat, zips up her white boots and kicks around in the fakest-looking snow ever with Santa Claus.

Is the scene familiar? It's from Mariah's music video for her 1994 holiday hit, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," the best Christmas song ever. Lots of people apparently share my love of this song: It was the 21st most-downloaded song on iTunes last weekend. Pretty impressive for a 13-year-old pop tune.

I first heard it while sitting in the basement of my Portland, Ore., home, watching MTV with my younger sister Heather. I was 12.

It starts with dramatic piano music, tinged with the sound of festive bells. Mariah drags out each syllable for maximum theatrics. "I don't want a lot for Christmas/There is just one thing I need."

About 50 seconds in, the chorus peps up. The piano goes nuts; a gospel choir claps and harmonizes with Mariah. My little preteen heart couldn't soak in all the joy emanating from the television screen, so Heather and I danced. We jumped around the basement, twisting our hips and squealing with delight. We tried and failed to hit Mariah's glass-shattering last note. "All I want for Christmas is YOU!"

But that's not what happened the very first time I heard the song. I didn't like it. Rather, I didn't let myself like it. I'm a Jewish girl, and Jewish girls aren't supposed to listen to or enjoy Christmas music. I probably even changed the channel.

There aren't a whole lot of Jews in Portland. Enough so that I didn't feel like a total freak, but not enough so that kids wouldn't come up to me on the playground and ask why my people killed Jesus. I don't know what I resented more: being forced to sing Christmas carols for the school choir or singing the token Hanukkah songs. Even in elementary school, I could tell they were just putting those in the recital to be politically correct.

During the winter of '94, I was even more protective -- defensive, really -- of my faith. I was clocking serious hours at the synagogue in preparation for my bat mitzvah. Learning to read Hebrew and chant my Torah portion intensified my commitment to Judaism.

That same year, my mom suggested we put a string of blue and white lights on the roof. I threw a fit, saying we were not Christian and shouldn't do that. Nobody else in my family thought it was a big deal. We compromised and strung up white lights (I guess having colored bulbs upset me, among other things).

Even though I originally turned off the forbidden Mariah Carey song, it was winter break, and Heather and I were spending an extraordinary amount of time in front of MTV. We wound up watching the video for "All I Want for Christmas Is You" at least twice a day. Yes, Virginia, MTV used to play music videos.

Heather, then 10, didn't share my religious zealotry. She did, however, think it unspeakably nerdy to be a Mariah Carey fan (she and her friends called her "Mariah Scary"), so "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was taboo for her, too.

Still, after a few days of Mariah immersion, the song sucked us into its irresistible fairy tale world, where love trumps material possessions. A place where we plead, "Santa won't you bring me the one I really need?/Won't you please bring my baby to me?"

We started getting excited to hear those slow, opening bars of piano and Mariah's elastic vocals, humming and tapping our hands on our laps with the beat. (The dancing started shortly thereafter.)

In the video, Mariah goes sledding, flirts with Santa and plays with a puppy under a Christmas tree in front of a roaring fire. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is pure, distilled holiday music joy, like a shot of eggnog sipped under the mistletoe (or what I imagined that it was like -- I'd never tasted the stuff). Without knowing it, Ms. Scary had struck a blow for ecumenical harmony, helped heal a millennia-old rift in Judeo-Christian history. They should have blasted the song over the loudspeakers at the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis.

It is also one of the only new, original holiday songs to become a perennial hit (though in the Christmas music catalogue, 13 years is nothing: "Jingle Bells" was written in the 1850s). Most everything else is either an old song or a remake of one.

"All I Want for Christmas" holds up all year. I'll listen to it in March or August or whenever I need a little mood boost. Next May, I plan to play it at my wedding reception.

Today, Heather and I live 3,000 miles apart, but we exchange ecstatic text messages: "OMG, M.C. all i want 4 xmas is on!"

Then I proceed to dance around my apartment, twist my hips and squeal with delight. Happy Hanukkah.

Source: Rachel Beckman - Washington Post