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James Corden's all-star Carpool Karaoke is the best gift of all

A year's worth of celebrity singers show up to sing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You."

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

Belting out holiday songs is always better with a friend. Or two. Or more. Especially if those friends include Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Adele, Elton John and Selena Gomez.

James Corden, host of "The Late Late Show with James Corden" on CBS, wasn't about to rest on his laurels, even after his "Carpool Karaoke" video with Bruno Mars earned nearly 20 million views. (Disclosure: CBS is CNET's parent company.)

So he put together an all-star "Carpool Karaoke" edition to end the year. Carey starts off the show in a gift-filled car by telling Corden her dream Christmas gift would be for him to sing her song, "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

The two start the tune off -- Corden in a goofy Christmas sweater, Carey in a glitzy and cleavage-baring outfit -- then the other stars start showing up to sing a line or two.

Apparently Corden's been enlisting his "Carpool Karaoke" singers to tape a few seconds of the song each time he shot a regular video with them, and all involved managed to kept the secret all year long. You'll see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Demi Lovato with Nick Jonas, Gwen Stefani and Chris Martin pop up to sing along, with everyone seeming as delighted as the jolly old elf himself.

It's hard to tell what's more fun -- waiting for the next famous face and voice to show up, or hearing the audience's squeals of delight when they recognize the star in question. All we want for Christmas is an encore.