Here's What Mariah Carey Really Thinks About the Billboard Charts
In a game of 'Over/Under' with Pitchfork posted Thursday (Aug. 14), Mimi talked about whether she thinks the song and album charts — many of which she's dominated at different points throughout her career — are over- or underrated. 'Well, they matter to me a lot,' she began.
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'So, I'm going to say they're underrated, because not everybody is in that world,' Carey continued. 'Sometimes the songs are, like, literally underrated, because people don't know them, and they're album cuts. And then sometimes it's like [Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper] 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' — not sometimes, one time.'
Carey is a record holder for most No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 as a solo artist with 19, just one less than The Beatles' record 20. She's also the only artist to have a No. 1 on the chart in 20 distinct years, and in 2019, she became the first artist to have had a Hot 100 No. 1 in four different decades.
And of course, Carey annually ascends to the top of Billboard's holiday charts with evergreen hit 'All I Want for Christmas Is You,' which has collected 18 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 since its release in 1994. When asked about her mind-boggling chart successes last year in an interview with Billboard, Carey said that it was 'astonishing.'
'To have 19 No. 1 singles and be one away from The Beatles … I don't know how I can't acknowledge that,' she added at the time. 'One away from The Beatles … that's a lot. I think it's a little hard to wrap my head around.'
Elsewhere in the Pitchfork video, Carey shared her thoughts on everything from Love Island — in her words: 'Ugh' — to Labubus, which she said are 'so cute.' As for another decades-old music industry institution, the Songbird Supreme stated, 'I think the Grammys are overrated … But we love everybody.'
Watch Carey share her thoughts on the Billboard charts and more above.
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