I will admit that when I realized James Corden had aired another Carpool Karaoke — his third in the space of two weeks — my first reaction was a Scrooge-like “Bah, humbug.”
Watch: Mariah Carey sings “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on Carpool Karaoke
She’s joined by half of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke guests. (Yes, Adele is there.)
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
Look, Carpool Karaoke has been a spot of sunshine in this cold, dark year, but as I said when Madonna’s entry was followed so rapidly by one from Bruno Mars, The Late Late Show has got to space out these joys. I would hate to get tired of one of the only things that can reliably unite this divided nation of ours.
And so I sneered at this Christmas-themed Carpool Karaoke. “Mariah Carey isn’t even a good fit for this segment,” I said. “She’s too much of a diva to have fun with it.”
Reader: The ghosts of Carpool Karaoke past have shown me the error of my ways.
Because Corden did not get only Mariah Carey — dressed in rhinestone-encrusted illusion lace, because of course — to sing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” with him. He got half of this year’s previous Carpool Karaoke participants to do it, too: Adele, of course, and also Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas, and Elton John, and Selena Gomez, and Lady Gaga, and Chris Martin, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Gwen Stefani. Corden apparently got them all to sing “All I Want for Christmas” as they were taping their segments earlier in the year, and here they are, all edited together into a single montage.
And damned if it isn’t incredibly festive and charming and heart-warming to watch them all ham it up to the only true modern Christmas classic. There’s Demi Lovato trolling Nick Jonas again! There’s Flea getting endearingly into it and improvising a “Ho, ho, ho!” There’s Selena Gomez drumming on the seat divider!
Merry Christmas, James Corden, and God bless us, every one.
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