This holiday season may not be filled with the usual parties, gatherings, cookie exchanges and festive feelings that we’re used to, and Mariah Carey knows that. That’s why she assembled an Avengers-like musical task force to save Christmas, recruiting Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande to re-record her single “Oh Santa!” and dropping a music video for the collaboration on December 4. The three wise women have arrived, and they brought the gift of a new holiday bop.The music video was part of Carey’s latest holiday event,
Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special. The festive TV event premiered Friday at midnight on Apple TV and included the dream team’s performance, which has now been released as the music video for “Oh Santa!” In the video, Hudson and Grande join Carey on stage in their best holiday party outfits as they show off their beautiful harmonizing while energetic elves dance around them. Carey’s twins Monroe and Moroccan make blink and you’ll miss them appearances in the video and appear throughout their mom’s new special.The video for “Oh Santa!” mostly plays like an extravagant holiday ad for a department store but considering COVID restrictions and our deep longing for days of aimlessly wandering through the mall, it’s perfect.
Getting so many big voices together in one song doesn’t always work, but the three women proved that not only can they execute their own runs flawlessly, but they can also harmonize whistle notes. As if fans were ever doubting them. Carey, Hudson and Grande are three of the only singers on the charts right now who can perform together without one artist being left in the gingerbread house-dust. They are divas, and divas need to stick together.“Oh Santa!” originally appeared on Carey’s 2010 holiday album
Merry Christmas II You, a follow-up to her massive 1994 album
Merry Christmas, which included the single “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Speaking to
Billboard about the new collaboration, Carey said she approached the project from the producer standpoint. "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,” said Carey of “Oh Santa!.” “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."Carey
announced her latest holiday special on November 18 and revealed the all-star lineup. In addition to Hudson and Grande, the holiday spectacular also included appearances from Tiffany Haddish, Billy Eichner, ballerina Misty Copeland, Snoop Dogg, Jermaine Dupri and actor Mykal-Michelle Harris. The new special addressed the ongoing global pandemic and centered around Carey arriving just in time to save 2020. Seems right.The new special features Carey singing some of her original holiday songs, including “Oh Santa!” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” as well as classics like “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Sleigh Ride.” The soundtrack for
Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special dropped last night on Apple Music and will be available on all other platforms starting December 11.Later this month,
Carey will sit down with Apple Music host Zane Lowe to share her personally curated list of holiday songs and discuss her new memoir,
The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which was released in September. In October, Carey also dropped her two-disc album
The Rarities.
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