Most Popular Christmas Music Artists in 2022

Mariah Carey was born in Long Island, New York on March 27, 1969. Her parents are Patricia Hickey (Irish-American) and Alfred Roy Carey (African-American/Venezuelan). Mariah attended Greenlawn's Harborfields High School. In June 1990, Mariah made her debut with her self-titled album, Mariah Carey which entered at #73, but on August 4, 1990 it reached #1. Her 1990 self-titled debut album went multi-platinum and spawned an extraordinary four consecutive #1 singles: "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry," and led to Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist. Her 1993 album titled Music Box went ten-times platinum. On September 30, 1995, she made music history. Her single "Fantasy" from her 1995 Daydream album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first female artist to accomplish a number one debut in the U.S. Her other Daydream's single "One Sweet Day" remained for 16 weeks at the top of the charts. She is the only artist since The Beatles to have so many #1 singles and albums. With "Heartbreaker", the first single from her 1999 album Rainbow and also her 14 #1 single, she became the only artist to top the charts in each year of the 1990s, and with "Heartbreaker" at its 60th week atop the Billboard's charts, she pushed ahead of The Beatles's 59-week record as the only artist with the most cumulative weeks spent atop Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart.

Following "Heartbreaker," her second single "Thank God I Found You" also from her Rainbow album became her 15th #1. "We Belong Together" from her 2005 album The Emancipation of Mimi became her 16th #1 single and was also her first #1 without any guest artists since her song "My All" (also a #1 single) captured the top spot in May 1998. The single "Don't Forget About Us" also from her 2005 album Emancipation of Mimi became her 17th #1 single, tying her with Elvis Presley's 17 #1 singles. Three more Grammy Awards were gained from The Emancipation of Mimi album. She is the most successful selling female artist in music history and is the only female artist to have the most #1 singles and albums and also holds the record for straight #1 singles and albums each year. Along with numerous awards and incredible vocal range, she also composes all of her own material, with the exception of song covers.

In April 2008, the single "Touch My Body" became her 18th #1 single, pushing her ahead of Elvis Presley's 17 #1 singles. Now she is the only artist since The Beatles to have as many number one singles and the only singer alive likely to succeed them.

Multi-platinum artist Michael Bublé grew up near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was introduced to swing music and old standards by his grandfather, who offered his services for free as a professional plumber to musicians who were willing to let Michael sing a couple of songs with them on stage.

He got his big break in show business after former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney discovered his music. At 10 years of struggling, the discovery came at a time when distraught Michael was considering giving up a career in music and getting a job in media. His performance at a corporate gig in summer 2000 impressed Michael McSweeney, speech writer/right hand man to Brian Mulroney, and told Mcsweeney to feel free to use his independent CD as a coaster if he didn't like it. Mcsweeney gave the CD to Brian & Mila Mulroney, which led to an invitation to sing at their daughter's wedding, where he was introduced to music producer David Foster, who took him under his wing.

His self-titled debut album came out February 12, 2003 and has since won several music awards and incredible worldwide success.

He also well known for his support of feminism.

He was born in Middlesborough to Irish and Italian parents in 1951. His first ambition was to be a journalist which ended when a college teacher tore up one of his essays after which he went to work in his father's ice cream factory. Away from music Chris' passion was for motor racing and Ferrari cars and he holds a full racing licence, doing 18 laps in a Jordan Formula One car and raced a BMW touring car shoot out in the TOCA shoot out at Donington Park side by side with Nigel Mansell. .Having given up motor racing he almost lost his life when a medical ailment imobilised him for 18 months, However confined to bed he used his time to dictate the script for La Passione. He had no need to work though as his father owned an ice cream business which Chris is the only inheritor, His ambition was to travel to his Italian homeland and to own a Ferrari.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in East Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Presley (née Gladys Love Smith) and Vernon Presley (Vernon Elvis Presley). He had a twin brother who was stillborn. In 1948, Elvis and his parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he attended Humes High School. In 1953, he attended the senior prom with the current girl he was courting, Regis Wilson. After graduating from high school in Memphis, Elvis took odd jobs working as a movie theater usher and a truck driver for Crown Electric Company. He began singing locally as "The Hillbilly Cat", then signed with a local recording company, and then with RCA in 1955.

Elvis did much to establish early rock and roll music. He began his career as a performer of rockabilly, an up-tempo fusion of country music and rhythm and blues, with a strong backbeat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing 'black' and 'white' sounds, made him popular - and controversial - as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Jailhouse Rock" and "Hound Dog" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop music. Teenage girls became hysterical over his blatantly sexual gyrations, particularly the one that got him nicknamed "Elvis the Pelvis" (television cameras were not permitted to film below his waist).

In 1956, following his six television appearances on The Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show", Elvis was cast in his first acting role, in a supporting part in Love Me Tender (1956), the first of 33 movies he starred in.

In 1958, Elvis was drafted into the military, and relocated to Bad Nauheim, Germany. There he met 14-year old army damsel Priscilla Ann Wagner (Priscilla Presley), whom he would eventually marry after an eight-year courtship, and by whom he had his only child, Lisa Marie Presley. Elvis' military service and the "British Invasion" of the 1960s reduced his concerts, though not his movie/recording income.

Through the 1960s, Elvis settled in Hollywood, where he starred in the majority of his thirty-three movies, mainly musicals, acting alongside some of the most well known actors in Hollywood. Critics panned most of his films, but they did very well at the box office, earning upwards of $150 million total. His last fiction film, Change of Habit (1969), deals with several social issues; romance within the clergy, an autistic child, almost unheard of in 1969, rape, and mob violence. It has recently received critical acclaim.

Elvis made a comeback in the 1970s with live concert appearances starting in early 1970 in Las Vegas with over 57 sold-out shows. He toured throughout the United States, appearing on-stage in over 500 live appearances, many of them sold out shows. His marriage ended in divorce, and the stress of constantly traveling as well as his increasing weight gain and dependence upon stimulants and depressants took their toll.

Elvis Presley died at age 42 on August 16, 1977 at his mansion in Graceland, near Memphis, shocking his fans worldwide. At the time of his death, he had sold more than 600 million singles and albums. Since his death, Graceland has become a shrine for millions of followers worldwide. Elvis impersonators and purported sightings have become stock subjects for humorists. To date, Elvis Presley is the only performer to have been inducted into three separate music 'Halls of Fame'. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales, and remains one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music.

Wham! were the biggest-selling pop musicians of the 1980s and one of the first internationally successful Boy Bands. The pop duo comprised of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, who hailed from Bushy Meads, in Hertfordshire, England.

They came to prominence in 1982 with their top five hit 'Young Guns (Go for It)' and followed this record up with three more top-ten hits and a number one debut album, 'Fantastic' (1983). The rest is history. They remained at the top of the charts until their split in 1986.

Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.

Ariana Grande was born Ariana Grande-Butera on June 26, 1993 in Boca Raton, Florida to Joan Grande, a chief executive officer for Hose-McCann Communications & Edward Butera, a graphic designer, photographer, artist and Ibi Designs Inc. owner/founder. Both of her parents are of Italian descent. Ariana starred in the 2008 musical, 13 before becoming a household name through her roles on Nickelodeon. She appeared as Cat Valentine in the network's sitcoms Victorious (2010) and Sam & Cat (2013), lent her voice to the character Diaspro in Nickelodeon's revival of Winx Club (2004), and was part of the main cast for the Nick TV movie "Swindle". She has since appeared in other theatre and television roles.

Ariana's music career began in 2011 with the soundtrack album "Music from Victorious". In 2013, she released her first studio album Yours Truly, which entered atop the US Billboard 200. The album's lead single, The Way, opened in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, with critics comparing her wide vocal range to that of Mariah Carey.

Ariana's second studio album, My Everything (2014), entered at number one in the US and charted in the top 10 in 24 other countries. With the lead single, Problem and several other singles, she was continuously in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 for 34 weeks and had the most top 10 singles of any artist in 2014. The next year, she gave her first world tour, The Honeymoon Tour, to promote My Everything. In 2016, she released her third studio album Dangerous Woman, which charted at number two on the Billboard 200. The title track debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first person in the history of that chart to have the lead singles from each of their first three albums debut within the top 10 in the US. In 2017, Ariana gave her international Dangerous Woman Tour.

As of June 2017, Ariana's music videos had been viewed a total of more than nine billion times online. Her accolades include three American Music Awards, three MTV Europe Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and four Grammy Award nominations. All three of her albums have been certified platinum by the RIAA. She has supported a range of charities and has a large following on social media. In 2016, Time named Ariana one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual list.

Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).

Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's Eleven (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.

After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Laura (1987).

The Carpenters were brother and sister Richard Carpenter and Karen Carpenter. Both grew up in Downey, California and were very musical at an early age. Richard Carpenter started his own instrumental band with his sister Karen called "The Richard Carpenter Trio." Richard played the piano and organized the music, and Karen played the drums. The Richard Carpenter Trio won a 1966 "Battle of the Bands" contest. Richard helped Karen develop her singing voice and started to make demo tapes with her after the Richard Carpenter Trio split up. One of those demo tapes was sent to Herb Alpert at A&M Records and he immediately signed on Richard and Karen as "Carpenters," after he liked what he heard.

In 1969 the Carpenters made their first album called "Offerings." It was a flop, and so was their first single "Ticket To Ride," which was a ballad version of the Beatles song. In 1970 the Carpenters made their second album called "Close To You." The album was a hit, and the two singles "Close To You" and "We've Only Just Begun" made the Carpenters superstars. This earned them 2 Grammy Awards and made them millionaires. The Carpenters were ridiculed, because they didn't fit into the rock-and-roll, drug scene during the early 70s. They were considered "goody two shoes" and "square" by most, but their music was very much loved by people of all ages.

During the Carpenters performance for President Richard Nixon at the White House in 1973, President Nixon called them "Young America At Its Best," a title that made them stand out even more during the 70s. But nevertheless, the Carpenters continued to make hits songs and albums. In 1971 their third album, simply called "Carpenters" was successful with songs like, "Rainy Days and Mondays" "For All We Know" and "Superstar." In 1972 the Carpenters had another hit record with their fourth album called "A Song For You," which had hit songs like "Top Of The World" and "Goodbye To Love" and "Hurting Each Other." The Carpenters had another hit album in 1973 with their fifth album called "Now & Then." The song "Yesterday Once More" became the Carpenters signature song and it is their most recognized song around the world. It was also their most successful song.

The Carpenters popularity climaxed and they started to tour around the world, extensively. They had numerous television guest appearances on talk shows, and they were starting to make their own musical variety shows for ABC. It was also at this time, that Karen Carpenter started to become more sensitive about her weight. Music critics called her fat, and this upset her. She started to diet lightly, by only eating green salads and drinking iced tea. Then she didn't eat at all, and started to abuse laxatives. Karen became thinner and thinner. Around 1975 she collapsed on stage during one of the tours, and was bedridden for 6 weeks. Her weight had lowered to 77 pounds. In 1975 the Carpenters had made their sixth album called "Horizon." The album wasn't as successful as the previous 4 had been, but it did moderately well. In 1976 the Carpenters started to have more success on television, when they started making their own variety shows. These shows were very successful for ABC and the Carpenters, and their popularity was still growing. In 1976 the Carpenters made their seventh album called "A Kind of Hush." This album only did moderately well also, and their record sales were getting lower.

In 1977 they made their eighth album called "Christmas Portrait," and this album did very well. The Carpenters were still doing the TV shows and Variety Specials. By this time they were touring excessively and it was wearing Karen and Richard out. Karen had become even thinner, and people were starting to notice. Sometimes when she would walk out on stage the audience would gasp when they saw her, because of her excessively thin looks. Around 1979, Richard Carpenter checked into a chemical dependency unit in Oklahoma, to help himself get off of sleeping pills. Since Richard was in the hospital the Carpenters music and TV shows were on hiatus. Karen was becoming weary and restless, and wanted to make music. So she decided to make a solo album. She wanted Richard's blessing, but he said no at first. Later Richard told Karen it was okay, but asked her not to make a disco music. So Karen flew from Los Angeles to New York to make her solo album with famous music producer Phil Ramone.

Phil and Karen didn't want to make more of the Carpenters trademark music, so they both decided to do more adult and edgier music. Karen sang more sexually themed songs like "Making Love on a Saturday afternoon" and "My Body Keeps Changing My Mind" and "Make Believe It's Your First Time." Karen and Phil both loved the album, and during the end of 1979, when Richard was cured and Karen's solo album was finished, everyone met at A&M Studios to listen to Karen's solo album. On their first listen, everyone but Karen and Phil hated the album. Richard Carpenter and Herb Alpert hated it so much, that they decided to shelve the album. Phil Ramone and Karen were hurt. During 1980 Karen started to date Thomas Burris. A wealthy real-estate businessman. Karen was looking for two things in a man she would marry. That we was rich, so that he wouldn't financially depend on her, and that he would be important, so that he wouldn't be intimidated by her superstar. Karen found those things in Tom Burris and married him in 1980 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. A newly and happily married Karen was wanting to make more music again. So she and Richard went back to the studio and made their last album together, "Made In America." The album did better then expected.

Karen and Tom's marriage was falling apart, and after a long fight at the Carpenter's house, Tom came down the stairs and told Richard "You Can Have Her!". Karen was preparing divorce papers at the time of her death but they were never signed or filed. During the early 80s, Karen's long battle with anorexia nervosa, was getting worse. Karen still picked at her food, and rarely ate. So she and Richard agreed to send her off to New York again. Karen met with a psychotherapist everyday, but she didn't really make progress. She went into hospital and was fed intravenously and went from 80 lbs, to 100 lbs.

She had obviously gained too much weight. She checked out of the hospital, and went back to Los Angeles, but was still weight-obsessed and the disorder returned to her again. On February 4, 1983 Karen died of a heart attack from her long battle with anorexia nervosa. The autopsy had also shown that she had died from overdosing on ipecac, a drug used to make her vomit, and when taken in large quantities, it becomes fatal.

After her death, during 1983, Richard made a tenth Carpenters album called "Voice of the Heart." He used old Karen recordings and some music from her shelved solo album for "Voice of the Heart." The album wasn't a failure but it wasn't a hit either. In 1984, Richard got married and produced the eleventh Carpenters album called "An Old Fashioned Christmas." In 1985 Richard helped produce "Yesterday Once More," a Carpenters compilation album that was the first of many compilation albums to be produced. The songs on "Yesterday Once More" were all remixed for better and cleaner sounding songs. In 1987, Richard made his first solo album called "Time." Richard sang and had guest singers like Dionne Warwick contribute to the album. The album turned out to be a flop.

In 1989, he made a twelfth Carpenters album called "Lovelines." More songs from Karen's shelved solo album were used here, and later that year, Richard help to direct and produce "The Karen Carpenter Story" TV movie, which was a success.

During the early 90s Richard started a family that has grown to 5 or 6 children. In 1996 his mother Agnes died and Richard wrote brief liner notes to accompany Karen Carpenter's finally released solo album, and in 1997 Richard made his second solo album called "Richard Carpenter: Pianist, Arranger, Composer, Conductor." It was an instrumental album that flopped again. During the late 90s Richard helped produced more Carpenters compilation albums and box sets, and started touring by himself around the USA and Japan. He also does concerts with artists such as Petula Clark. In 2001 Richard produced the thirteenth Carpenters album called "As Time Goes By.", a combination of unreleased Carpenters songs and outtakes of songs. In 2003 Richard Carpenter participated in a charity event called "Top Of the World" and in December 2003, he wrote the liner notes to a new Carpenters compilation CD released by A&M Records, called "Gold: 35th Anniversary Edition." In 2004 he released "As Time Goes By" to the USA for the first time and in March 2004, he participated in "Top of the World II" charity event.

Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles (he later dropped the "s" in his surname) in Montgomery, Alabama. He received music lessons from his mother and his family moved to Chicago when he was only five, where his father, Edward James Coles, was a minister at the True Light Baptist Church and later Pastor of the First Baptist Church. At 12, he was playing the church organ. At age 14, he formed a 14 piece band called the Royal Dukes. Nat was a top flight sandlot baseball player at Wendell Phillips high school in Chicago.

His three brothers, Ike, Frankie, and Eddie Cole, also played the piano and sang professionally. Nat was an above-average football player in high school. His sister, Evelyn Cole, was a beautician in nearby Waukegan, Illinois. In 1939 he formed the King Cole Trio after his publicist put a silver tin-foiled crown on his head and proclaimed him "King". He later toured Europe and made a command performance before Queen Elizabeth II.

He had a highly-rated TV show in the 1950s but it was canceled (by Cole himself) as no companies could be found that were willing to sponsor the show. He was a big baseball fan and had a permanent box seat at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He met his wife Maria Cole (a big-band singer) at the Zanzibar nightclub in Los Angeles through Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson show. Her parents opposed her decision to marry Cole, claiming he was "too black". They married, nonetheless, in 1948, and had two daughters, Caroline and Natalie Cole. On April 10, 1956, at Birmingham, Alabama, he was attacked by six white men from a white supremacist group called the White Cizizens Council during a concert and sustained minor injuries to his back. Cole appeared in several movies, the last of which was Cat Ballou (1965), starring Lee Marvin.

Cole received 28 gold record awards for such hits as "Sweet Lorraine", "Ramblin' Rose" in 1962, "Too Young" in 1951, "Mona Lisa" in 1949 and Mel Tormé's "Christmas Song". His first recordings of the Christmas Song included the lyrics, "Reindeers really know how to fly" instead of "reindeer really know how to fly", a mistake later corrected by Capitol Records. He was also a composer and his song "Straighten Up and Fly Right" was sold for $50.00. A heavy smoker, he died of lung cancer.