Should There Be a Separate Holiday Billboard Chart?

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Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" has now had more weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 than any other artist. Should that be how the Billboard Hot 100 works?



Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” has now had more weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 than any other artist. Should that be how the Billboard Hot 100 works?

Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.

I posted on social media earlier about how Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” has now been the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record 20th week (and it will almost CERTAINLY hit week #21, 22, and 23 this year. Maybe even 24 into the new year).

When the song first came out over 30 years ago, it wasn’t eligible to be on the Billboard Hot 100 because it was not released as a paid single (Sony wanted people to buy the album, Merry Christmas, instead).

As I noted in a piece a while back, the key to Carey’s recent Billboard success is as follows:

Billboard has not always been consistent with HOW Christmas songs are treated on the Billboard charts. For a while there, Christmas songs had their own chart, so they literally COULDN’T participate in the Billboard Hot 100 Singles. That obviously has a certain amount of logic to it, as suddenly, come December, the charts are filled with songs 60-70 years old and the current hits all get pushed back.

That’s obviously the BIGGEST reason why Holiday songs are now all over the charts, but in addition:

1. Billboard’s Hot 100 has changed over the years to adjust to how people actually listen to music nowadays. For instance, about fifteen years ago, most people were using YouTube to listen to their favorite songs and Billboard wasn’t tracking it and thus the charts were out of whack. Nowadays, obviously most people use song streaming services like Spotify to listen to music and Billboard has adopted to the change (among other measurements, of course).

While seasonal songs always tended to return to the charts when it got closer to Christmas (when allowed), the boom in song streaming services make it SO much easier to listen to the same few songs over and over again (as opposed to actually, like, buying singles. People buy singles of older Christmas songs, but not to the same extent as modern songs). That’s totally cool for new songs as that’s literally how this stuff works, ya know? The most popular songs ARE the ones that people listen to over and over again, after all, but when it comes to Christmas, the relative dearth of modern Christmas songs has made it so that Mariah Carey’s 30+ year old “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has had an oversized impact on streaming services.

2. From 2005-2011, Billboard would not allow “recurrent” songs to chart, meaning that old songs couldn’t chart on the Hot 100. The exception was if there was an actual big re-release or if the song was featured on a new soundtrack or something like that. However, in 2012, Billboard changed that policy. So “All I Want For Christmas” was likely doing quite well in those years, and heck, maybe would have hit #1 at some point, but wasn’t eligible.

Therefore, with that in mind, due to the way that Spotify obviously plays the same group of holiday songs over and over every year, the same songs will now always hit the charts at this time of the year. Look at the current Billboard Hot 100.

1. Mariah Carey “All I Want For Christmas Is You”
2. Brenda Lee “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”
3. Wham! “Last Christmas”
4. Bobby Helms “Jingle Bell Rock”
5. Ariana Grande “Santa Tell Me”
6. HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna & REI AMI “Golden”
7. Taylor Swift “The Fate of Ophelia”
8. Nat “King” Cole “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)”
9. Kelly Clarkson “Underneath the Tree”
10. Andy Williams “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

So, in the current Billboard top 10, you have three artists who are long dead (Helms, Cole, and Williams) plus a band where the main singer is long dead (Wham!). Does that really make sense for a “Hot 100”?

My pal, Michael, mentioned this to me, and I think he’s right. We need to go back to holiday songs just having their own chart. This doesn’t reflect what songs are ACTUALLY popular right now, it just shows the same Christmas songs everyone listens to every year. It doesn’t give us any new information.

Actually, I think the way it should go is to reinstate the rule about no old songs on the charts unless there is a reissue, so that NEW holiday songs SHOULD be eligible for the charts, as that’s fair enough. But then there would ALSO be a Holiday charts for all of the holiday songs.

The “Hot 100” should reflect the actual “hot” songs out there, meaning NEW songs.

[JO Sweet Heart]

To me, a chart just for Christmas songs makes sense because then the chart success of the regular songs isn't disrupted in any way.

God bless you always!!!

Holly