Mariah Carey (proven performing in New York Metropolis in 2014) launched “All I Need For Christmas Is You” in 1994, nevertheless it took 25 years for the music to achieve the highest of Billboard‘s Scorching 100 pop chart. Since 2019, it has topped the chart every December for a complete of 16 weeks at No. 1 — to date.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Photos
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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Photos
For the second week in a row, the highest 10 songs on the Billboard Scorching 100 are full of vacation perennials … and Kendrick Lamar. With Christmas songs filling your entire high 5 — and Mariah Carey posting one more week at No. 1 — you would be forgiven for not noticing that Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” has logged its first-ever week because the nation’s high non-holiday single. Over on the albums chart, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division holds at No. 1.
Plus, with the standard vacation hits adorning the highest of the pop charts, it is time to dig a bit deeper into the Billboard Vacation 100 and glean a way of which recent-vintage songs have a shot at dominating the pop charts in future Decembers.
TOP ALBUMS
Final week, Taylor Swift reminded us that we’re all simply tiny bugs toiling in a pop-cultural ant farm of her creation. When Swift feels particularly motivated to take care of her maintain on the high of the album chart — as she did for a run of almost 4 months this spring and summer time — she merely releases a string of discount-priced digital editions with new bonus tracks or reside songs. And when she actually needs to storm again to the highest of the charts, she does what she did on Black Friday: launch the first-ever bodily copies of The Tortured Poets Division‘s 31-song The Anthology version. These CD and vinyl editions, which have been bought solely at Goal, had been sufficient to propel her again to the highest of the Billboard 200 for a sixteenth and now seventeenth nonconsecutive week.
That leaves Kendrick Lamar’s newest, the surprise-released GNX, caught at No. 2 for a second week in a row following its debut week atop the chart. With Lamar persevering with to put up three songs within the Scorching 100 singles chart’s high 10 — an particularly spectacular feat, contemplating the logjam of vacation non-perishables spanning your entire high 5 — GNX is not any slouch in its personal proper. However it’s laborious to high an artist who refuses to budge.
With two immovable objects on the high of the Billboard 200, it may be simple to overlook the newest knowledge level within the mainstream embrace of Okay-pop music within the U.S.: Two Okay-pop albums debut on this week’s high 5 concurrently. ROSÉ’s rosie — that is the solo debut of the BLACKPINK member, whose Bruno Mars collaboration “APT.” has been a viral hit — enters the chart at No. 3, whereas the woman group TWICE hits the highest 10 for the second time this 12 months, as Technique debuts at No. 4.
Sabrina Carpenter’s huge 2024 brings with it a contemporary milestone of its personal: She now has two albums within the high 10, as Quick n’ Candy holds at No. 5 and her 2023 vacation EP Fruitcake re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 10. Fruitcake got here out with no ton of fanfare final 12 months — no shock, given how a lot Carpenter’s profile has grown within the final 12 months — however is now benefiting from a contemporary bodily launch, to not point out the singer’s newfound standing as a family identify and her newly launched Netflix vacation particular.
Rounding out the highest 10 are juggernauts each outdated and new: The Depraved soundtrack dips from No. 3 to No. 6, Michael Bublé’s Christmas continues to leech all discernible feelings from the season whereas holding regular at No. 7, Bing Crosby’s Final Christmas climbs from No. 9 to No. 8 and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Onerous and Mushy drops from No. 6 to No. 9.
TOP SONGS
Streaming has had numerous results on the best way we hearken to music, in addition to on the best way Billboard measures the success of songs and albums. The primary concern with the latter lies in the best way streaming algorithms feed listeners music they’ve already streamed earlier than, making a doom loop that units an especially excessive bar for any new music which may hope to crack, not to mention high, the charts.
The Billboard charts consequently have a tendency to provide a chaotic mixture of volatility and predictability. In earlier eras, the Scorching 100 could be dominated by songs you’d hear on the radio and/or purchase as bodily singles. However we now get charts the place one album can load up the highest 10 all by itself as a consequence of a excessive quantity of streaming. (Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division locked down the highest 14 songs on the Scorching 100 in a single week this previous spring.) And when vacation songs inevitably surge to the highest of the chart, they accomplish that in unnervingly predictable lockstep.
At this time 10 years in the past, when streaming was far much less widespread, the highest-charting vacation music was Mariah Carey’s then-20-year-old “All I Need for Christmas Is You,” which jumped from No. 50 to No. 40. At this time 5 years in the past, with streaming habits entrenched, that music hit No. 1 for the primary time ever — and has returned to the highest spot yearly since. This week, it holds at No. 1 for a second week in a row, and a sixteenth week total.
That 16-week run, unfold out during the last six vacation seasons, has elevated “All I Need for Christmas Is You” right into a four-way tie for the third-longest streak at No. 1 in chart historical past, behind the 19-week campaigns of Lil Nas X’s “Previous City Highway (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)” in 2019 and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” earlier this 12 months. By the way, one of many three different songs with a 16-week run belongs to … Mariah Carey, whose Boyz II Males collaboration “One Candy Day” blew away chart milestones again in 1995 and ’96 — and held on to the all-time file for greater than 20 years.
It is one factor to have the ability to guess that “All I Need for Christmas Is You” will high the charts for a number of weeks on the finish of every 12 months. What’s wild is how predictably the identical 4 songs spherical out the rest of the highest 5. This week, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Across the Christmas Tree” holds at No. 2; that is the music’s thirteenth nonconsecutive week at No. 2, all of them spent huffing Mariah Carey’s exhaust. Bobby Helms’ accursed “Jingle Bell Rock” climbs from No. 5 to No. 3 this week — a tough capsule to swallow for these of us who’ve by no means as soon as listened to “Jingle Bell Rock” voluntarily. Wham!’s “Final Christmas” dips from No. 3 to No. 4 and Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas” jumps from No. 10 to No. 5. At this time final 12 months? Those self same songs lined up in the very same order. In 2022? They had been 5 of the week’s high 6 songs.
It is price noting, to offer a way of how latest this phenomenon is, that simply three vacation songs have topped the Scorching 100 since its inception in 1958: “All I Need for Christmas Is You,” “Rockin’ Across the Christmas Tree” (for 3 weeks throughout final 12 months’s vacation season) and “The Chipmunk Tune” by The Chipmunks and David Seville, for 4 weeks all the best way again in December 1958. Different vacation mega-perennials, like Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” had been huge chart toppers, however they predate the Scorching 100 by years if not many years.
So right here we’re, in a timeline the place 5 indomitable vacation classics tower over every part, and certainly one of them is “Jingle Bell Rock.” Rounding out this week’s high 10 are acquainted powerhouses of a distinct nature. Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” climbs from No. 9 to No. 6, making it the highest-charting non-holiday music for the primary time in its 17-week chart run. Three songs from Kendrick Lamar’s GNX sit within the high 10 for a 3rd week: “Luther (feat. SZA)” dips from No. 6 to No. 7, “TV Off (feat. Lefty Gunplay)” plunges from No. 4 to No. 8 and former chart-topper Squabble Up” slips from No. 7 to No. 10. And, lastly, Shaboozey hangs in there for not less than yet another week of high 10 glory, as “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” slides from No. 8 to No. 9.
WORTH NOTING
In 2011, lower than two years earlier than Billboard started publishing a chart to replicate developments in streaming, the publication launched a holiday-specific chart: The Vacation 100.
As a result of Billboard solely publishes the chart for a number of weeks annually, there have been simply 71 particular person iterations of The Vacation 100 within the chart’s historical past. And, astoundingly, “All I Need for Christmas Is You” has topped the chart in 63 of them. However what’s nearly as placing is that totally one-quarter of the songs — together with greater than half of the highest 40, and all the high six — have charted in every week of the chart’s existence.
So for those who’re on the lookout for new vacation music — contemporary tracks to enliven the Christmas canon — it is laborious to seek out a lot of it on the Billboard charts, even with 100 slots to go round. Actually, proper now there are a grand complete of two 2024 songs on this week’s Vacation 100: Laufey’s “Christmas Magic” (No. 53) and a brand new model of “White Christmas” by which a long-dead Bing Crosby duets with V of BTS; each songs additionally skim the decrease areas of this week’s Scorching 100, hitting No. 79 and No. 93, respectively. (V and Park Hyo Shin’s new “Winter Forward” hit final week’s Vacation 100 at No. 62, and hit No. 99 on the Scorching 100, nevertheless it dropped off each charts this week.) A handful of different recent-vintage songs — corresponding to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Santa Does not Know You Like I Do,” from 2023 — pop up right here and there, however they’re overwhelmed by aged chestnuts from the Andy Williamses of the world.
Final Friday, I went on All Issues Thought of to debate why the Christmas canon is so closely tilted towards older songs — and, extra to the purpose, why we have not had a new colossal vacation hit since “All I Need for Christmas Is You,” from 1994. And one factor that got here up briefly can also be price noting right here: Would-be Christmas queens and kings have been lining as much as take a shot at Carey’s throne — and, because it seems, a handful of their latest songs have been slowly gaining steam.
For each Michael Bublé or Andy Williams who will get dethawed each Thanksgiving, there is a up to date pop star whose vacation music is edging ever nearer to admission into the vacation canon. Some have made a convention of going massive on the vacations, like Kelly Clarkson, whose 2013 hit “Beneath the Tree” retains flirting with the highest 10 yearly. (It is by no means risen greater than No. 11, nevertheless it leaps from No. 20 to No. 15 this week.) Ariana Grande’s 2014 single “Santa Inform Me” — one other comparatively recent-vintage perennial that is by no means fairly cracked the highest 10 — jumps from No. 19 to No. 14. Given the chart success of Fruitcake this week, in addition to her aforementioned Netflix particular, Sabrina Carpenter would appear to be carving out a perennial Christmas lane of her personal.
In different phrases, do not assume that “All I Need for Christmas Is You” is impervious to fading — or to severe competitors for vacation supremacy. It will not occur rapidly, as the continuing chart success of Perry Como suggests. However even on the Billboard charts, nothing lasts without end…
…besides, it appears, for Teddy Swims’ “Lose Management.” This week, Billboard named it the No. 1 music of 2024 — a feat it completed by means of not solely recognition, but additionally longevity. The monitor debuted on the Scorching 100 all the best way again in August 2023, spent 45 weeks within the high 10 this 12 months and peaked at No. 1 in March. Nonetheless, even with 13 vacation songs forward of it, it sits comfortably at No. 23.
