“All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey’s annual chart-topping Christmas anthem, is poised to break the all-time record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, if it returns to the top this year.
Key data
Carey’s annual climb to the top of the charts has already begun: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is No. 8 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, Billboard said Monday.
If Carey’s 1994 Christmas hit returns to the No. 1 spot, it will be the 19th week that “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has spent at the top, which would tie Carey for the record for most weeks at No. 1 in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
Lil Nas
Carey could take the solo record if she reaches her 20th week at No. 1; During the 2024 holiday season, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” held the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 for four consecutive weeks.
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Surprising fact
If “All I Want For Christmas Is You” surpasses Lil Nas His song “One Sweet Day” with Boyz II Men spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 between 1995 and 1996, which at the time was the longest number of weeks at the top of the chart. They held this record alone for 21 years until Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber tied it with “Despacito”, which spent 16 weeks at number 1 in 2017, and until “Old Town Road” broke the record completely in 2019.
Why does “All I Want For Christmas Is You” go to number 1 every year?
“All I Want For Christmas Is You” has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 every holiday season since 2019, as a result of several changes to Billboard’s chart rules. The song did not appear on the Hot 100 for the first time until 2000, six years after its release, due to a Billboard rule that prevented songs that were not released as physical singles from entering the chart. The rule was repealed in 1998, and Carey’s Christmas hit ranked at No. 83 on the Hot 100 chart dated January 8, 2000. The song began entering the Hot 100 annually in 2012, after Billboard repealed another rule that prevented songs that left the chart from returning. “All I Want For Christmas Is You” also benefited from the chart formula overhaul in 2018, which favored streaming over radio rotation and song sales, as the song is an annual streaming hit. In 2023, Billboard attributed Christmas music’s dominance in streaming as one of the reasons Christmas songs typically dominate the Hot 100 in December, citing the popularity of Christmas playlists.
How did “Old Town Road” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” dominate the charts for so long?
Both “Old Town Road” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” achieved all-time No. 1 records, as more hit songs spend more time atop the Hot 100. Billboard reported in May that nine songs in that week’s top 20 had spent more than 30 weeks on the chart, but 10 years ago, only one song in the top 20 had spent that long on the Hot 100. Although streaming has fragmented music audiences, Radio programmer and consultant Guy Zapoleon told Billboard that this phenomenon causes hit songs to remain popular longer. “Because there are so many different sources to turn to, it’s hard for songs outside of the biggest ones to become hits,” Zapoleon said, adding that “those songs take a while to become hits and then they stay there longer.”
Anecdote
“All I Want For Christmas Is You” generates huge income for Carey every year. In 2023, the Associated Press estimated that it had generated around $100 million in royalties since its release, and economists told CNBC in 2024 that the song likely generates between $3 and $4 million in revenue each year. Carey earns a large portion of that income as a co-writer, co-producer and performer, although the size of her payout depends on the terms of her contracts with her record label and co-writers. Carey has also used the song as a marketing tactic. In recent years, it has commemorated the start of the holiday season on November 1 on social media, and this year, it launched an ad campaign with Sephora on that date in an ad featuring “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
This article was originally published on Forbes US
