One of the most impressive shifts on the Billboard HOT 100 chart over the past decade has been carols taking top places at the year-end charts. Of course, this can be attributed to streaming. For quite a while now, every winter, people have been willingly or somewhat involuntarily listening to carols. Still, the performances of seasonal radio plays or flash album sales weren’t significant enough to impact the chart. Streaming, however, has transformed people’s actual consuming behavior of “listening” into something measurable, and the chart has embraced this indicator. In other words, the dominance of carols on the charts is the clearest evidence of how streaming has become a universal platform for music consumption today. 

At the heart of this, of course, is Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You”. The song was released in 1994 as part of her carol album “Merry Christmas”. Until then, carol albums weren’t considered as a serious project for top musicians. But Mariah Carey, who was in her commercial peak,  made “Merry Christmas” climb all the way to number three on the Billboard 200. “All I Want for Christmas is You” was the album’s main song, which even had its own music video, and performed well on radio charts. However, there had never been an official single album released in the physical form of a record. Since an album couldn’t be listed on the HOT 100 without a physical single album back in those days, of course, it never made it to the 100 Chart. Although the song has since been included in the holiday playlists, everyone, including Mariah Carey herself, would have been happy and delighted by its commercial success.

But then, in 1998, the rule requiring a physical single album to be listed on the HOT 100  chart disappeared. In January of 2000, for the first time, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” entered the HOT 100 at the 83rd position and remained there for just one week. It took more than a decade for the song to climb back to the HOT 100 chart, due to a number of recurrent rules that prevented older songs from reentering. As the rules began to relax, the 2012 holiday season saw “All I Want for Christmas Is You” re-enter the HOT 100 at the 29th position and eventually climbing to the 21st spot. It’s more accurate to say that carols’ ripple effects could no longer be ignored than to say that it returned to the chart because the rules have changed. It steadily climbed the rankings each  year, reaching the Top 9 in 2017 and the Top 3 in 2018.

Finally in 2019,  “All I Want for Christmas Is You” ranked number one on the HOT 100, marking the first time since 1958 that a carol topped the HOT 100. After that, there were legendary achievements. It topped the chart for four weeks in 2019, for two weeks in 2020, for three weeks in 2021, for four weeks in 2022, totaling 12 weeks at number one. Thanks to this song, Mariah Carey records the HOT 100 with 19 hits, only one song behind the Beatles with 20 hits. She is the first artist to achieve number one songs throughout the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. She’s an artist whose song has held the number one spot for the longest period of time and has topped the chart for the longest weeks.

In 2011, Billboard began to release the Holiday 100 chart. It was around the time that the music world began to pay attention to the carol market, and the HOT 100 began to relax their re-entry conditions and was about to re-list classic carols. As of December 2nd, the Holiday 100 chart in 2023 returned. In the 63 weeks that the chart existed since 2011, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” remained number one for 58 of them.  The other five weeks were occupied by Pentatonix for three weeks, Justin Bieber for one week,  and Ariana Grande for one week.

The No. 2 spot on the Holiday 100 belongs to Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” a classic released in 1958. The song re-entered the HOT 100 at the Top 50 during the 2013 holiday season. Its climb continued, catching up with Mariah Carey at the Top 30 in 2017 and the Top 9 in 2018. From 2019 to 2022, she kept the second place for four years while Mariah Carey dominated as the Queen of the holidays. During that period, she secured the number two spot nine times. Then in 2023, the all-time second-place becomes the new queen.

Let’s go back to the beginning of this year’s holiday season. On November 25th, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reentered the top 17 on the HOT 100. Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and three other holiday classics made it back to the HOT 100, but “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” wasn’t included. By then, it was assumed that Mariah Carey would remain as the sole winner forever. On December 2nd, “All I want for Christmas Is You” climbed to fourth place on the HOT 100 and even reached third on the Global 200. During the same week, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” reentered and recorded 8th place on the HOT 100 and 2nd place on the Holiday 100.

From this point onward, some analyses indicated that the momentum behind “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” was getting serious. This is because on November 28th, when the December 2nd’s chart was released, the performance tracking week for December 9th (November 24-30) was already well underway. At the time, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was ahead in radios and track sales, but the streaming  of  “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” rapidly increased, keeping number one on Spotify’s Daily Top songs USA.

This was thanks to a promotion policy that has become more aggressive than before, marking the 65th anniversary of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. Brenda Lee unveiled a new music video. Also, she released a new EP titled “A  Rockin’ Christmas with Brenda Lee,” featuring five carols including a dance remix by producer Filous. She even joined TikTok. While she doesn’t do any dance challenges, she showcased her songs and reflected on her career. A video footage of her singing on the plane’s cabin intercom also went viral.

Maintaining Mariah Carey’s “pension” certainly hasn’t been effortless, and the same holds true for this year. Mariah Carey created a special Apple TV+ show in both 2020 and 2021. In 2022, she partnered with CBS for a special show titled “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All!” and continued her major advertising campaigns without pause. In 2023, when November kicked in, she released a short video and even appeared in the holiday-themed Victoria’s Secret campaign. She sang at the Billboard Music Awards and received the Chart Achievement award at the ceremony.

Finally, on December 9th, the HOT 100 revealed “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” as the chart-topper. From the 2019 holiday season through last year, it ranked second for the ninth time. When you delve deeper into the results, Mariah Carey remains strong in track sales and radio play while  Brenda Lee leads in streaming. It is estimated that there would have been only a slight difference in the overall scores.

Numerous miraculous records, typically achievable only over extended periods, were set, along with a groundbreaking shift in the carol market.  Ranking number one on the HOT 100 after 65 years is by far the longest-awaited record. The previous record is, of course, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which took 25 years. For Brenda Lee’s solo song, this marked her third song to reach number one in 63 years since 1960. The previous record was Cher’s “Believe,” which made it to number one in 25 years. Brenda Lee is 78 this year, currently the oldest artist. She recorded the song when she was 13. Based on the time of recording, it’s also the number one song by the youngest artist. All of them are miraculous records that cannot be expected to be broken in the future . Meanwhile, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” maintained its No. 1 spot on the Global 200 and Global Excl. US charts, continuing to demonstrate its authority in the global market.

The holiday season has become much more fun. Checking out who will be number one each week is more exciting than ever. On the HOT 100 of December 16, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” kept its number one spot for the second week. The competition is expected to continue into early January and beyond, expanding into the next year and the subsequent years. Perhaps, one day, we might even see Ariana Grande’s “Santa tell Me,” Kelly Clarkson’s  “Underneath the Tree,” and Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe” competing against each other.