Hit songs come and go — artists last. What lasts even longer, though, are the Christmas carols, which are broadcast every year – and monetize accordingly.
The biggest example is Mariah Carey's “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which reappears on the Billboard Hot 100 toward the end of each year — it has hit No. 1 annually since 2019 — heralded by a video announcement by Carey that “It's Tiiiiime .” How popular is it?It's the No. 16 biggest song of all time in the US, a weighted measure of digital sales and streaming used by Luminate for about a decade. It's also the No. 42 song of all time in audio streaming on US demand.
The stability of the song's popularity suggests that it has the potential to be the biggest hit of the 21st century, although it is obviously impossible to know or even understand how such things might be measured in the future. But there is a precedent. Bing Crosby's 1942 recording of “White Christmas” is said to be the best-selling single of all time, with 50 million copies sold worldwide, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Is 'All I Want for Christmas' emerging as the successor of the next century?
It is possible. Most hits get big quickly, stay big for a while, and stay big for years, sometimes boosted by an artist's subsequent releases. Holiday hits hit big every year and disappear like Frosty the Snowman, only to return the following fall, as predictable as the holiday season itself. Carey released “All I Want for Christmas” as a radio single from her 1994 album Merry Christmasbut it did not enter the top 10 of the Hot 100 until December 2017. Until then, the charts reflected an increase in streaming audience as well as radio play and declining sales. The stream fueled the song's rise to No. 1 in 2019 (for three weeks), then 2020 (for two weeks), 2021 (three weeks), 2022 (four weeks), 2023 (two weeks) and now 2024 (three weeks as of the chart dated December 28). Now it's spent 17 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 overall — most of all songs except Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X's “Old Town Road” (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus), each of which topped the peak point for 19 weeks. Unlike those songs, however, “All I Want for Christmas” can still stay at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for years to come.
The list of the most streamed songs on demand skews towards songs from a few years ago, as they had a few more years to generate streams, and towards music that appeals to younger listeners, early adopters of Spotify and other services . Of the top 100, most songs came out after 2010 and almost all after 2000. The only older songs that have received more streams than Carey's are Fleetwood Mac's “Dreams” (No. 27) and “Don't ” of Journey Stop Believin'” (No. 31), according to Luminate. the only other older songs in the top 100 are the Eagles' “Hotel California,” Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” and, at 95, Brenda Lee's “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.”
Like most holiday hits, “All I Want for Christmas” is doing well worldwide — especially in English-speaking markets like the UK and Canada, where it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100. It's also popular beyond the Anglosphere: This year the song topped the German Top 100 Singles Chart, as well as the Austrian and Swiss charts, and its popularity is growing elsewhere. (At a time when Anglo-American recordings are losing market share to local music in most European markets, English Christmas songs are still doing well. For the chart week of December 20-26, for example, nine of the top 10 singles in Official German chart were English-language Christmas songs.) “All I Want” is the No. 48 of the most streamed on-demand songs internationally, according to Luminate.
One reason for the song's success is how much Carey leans into the song's seasonal success. It is far more popular than any other major Christmas carol concert: It had 19 No. 1 Hot 100 hits, second only to The Beatles, with 20, and has hit No. 1 in a record 20 different years. Some artists with this kind of career would balk at the idea of being identified with holiday music, but Carey embraced it – to the point where she applied to trademark the title 'Queen of Christmas', albeit unsuccessfully. In addition to her annual video announcement of the season, which is now something of an event in itself, she does an annual Christmas tour, which this year included 18 arena shows. In 2023, “All I Want for Christmas” accounted for 23% of her streams, according to Luminate.
It's impossible to predict whether the song will become the most popular of the century — or even how Bulletin board can count such things until then. “All I Want for Christmas” certainly isn't going anywhere: On-demand streams are up 15% and 8.3% in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to Luminate, compared to overall on-demand streaming growth 12.1% and 12.7%. . But it's also not gaining ground on the current on-demand streaming champ, Post Malone and Swae Lee's “Sunflower,” which had 333.12 million U.S. on-demand streams in 2023, compared to 249 million for “All I Want for Christmas”. “
Then again, holiday songs are nothing if not evergreen. In recent years, the top four songs on Billboard's Holiday 100 chart have been Carey's, “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree,” “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Last Christmas.” Carey's is by far the youngest of the four. The second biggest holiday hit, “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree,” which reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 for three weeks this past holiday season, it was recorded in 1958 — 66 years ago. If “All I Want for Christmas” has the same kind of run, it could be No. 1 in 2060 — regardless of what kind of listening it might involve 35 years from now.
