All I Want for Christmas Is You: The Timeless Holiday Classic is Back, With a Vengeance

Celebrate the season with Mariah Carey’s hits! ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ leads the festive playlist. Explore the top 20 most streamed songs on Spotify, gearing up for the most wonderful time of the year. 🎄🎶

All I Want for Christmas Is You is one of the most iconic and recognizable holiday anthems of all time. Originally released in 1994, the song has grown in popularity each December and has become a staple of Christmas music. Written and produced by American singer Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff, the track is an uptempo love song featuring bell chimes, backing vocals, and synthesizers. It has received critical acclaim and has become a holiday classic, with a significant rise in popularity each December.

The song is a classic holiday track that has grown in popularity over the years, thanks to the growth of streaming. The song initially launched to success when first released, reaching number six on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart in the U.S. and number two in the U.K. and Japan. However due to Billboard rules at the time, it wasn’t eligible for the Hot 100 because it wasn’t released in physical format. But with the introduction of music streaming, the single has seen renewed success, annually re-entering charts worldwide in the weeks before Christmas and has reached number one in over 25 countries, partially due to it being added to popular seasonal playlists.

All I Want for Christmas Throughout The Years

From 2005 to 2008, All I Want for Christmas is You topped the Billboard Hot 100 Re-currents chart every December. In 2012, following a revision to the recurrent rule, which allowed songs within the top 50 to enter the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the single re-entered at No. 29 and climbed to No. 21 the following week. In December 2017, the track reached its highest position at No. 9 and became Carey’s 28th top 10 song in the country, while in 2018, the song became the second holiday track to reach the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100, after “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” in 1958.

With the rise of digital streaming, All I Want for Christmas is You has seen a surge in popularity. The record began peaking on the Spotify’s Top Global Streams list, climbing from a modest position at 21 in 2013 to a new peak at number 2 in 2017, before finally reaching the top spot in 2018. However, it was 2019 that marked a new record on the Billboard chart in 2019, where the classic holiday song managed to hit its highest position at number 1, a milestone in the song’s long and storied journey towards popularity and success.

2019: Mariah claims her 19th number one hit

Since 2019, the song has entered the Hot 100 every year on the 3rd week of November with 2019 marking a re-entry at number 39. The song, “All I Want for Christmas is You”, took an impressive total of 35 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart to finally reach the top spot in 2019. This is the longest climb to the top position in the history of the chart, and it comes 25 years after the original release of the song. Despite its long journey to No. 1, in 2019 the song garnered 45.6 million streams and sold 27,000 digital copies in the United States during the Christmas week, making it the fastest-selling holiday digital single in over a decade.

The song extended Carey’s record of having the most number-one songs for a solo artist on the Hot 100 with nineteen number-one hits overall. Carey broke her previous record by achieving a total of 80 weeks at number-one on the Hot 100. While the song was originally released in 1994, it achieved the last number-one spot of the 2010s decade and became the first number-one hit of the 2020s decade. This achievement made Carey the first artist in history to top the charts in four separate decades…

2020: A COVID Christmas

The year 2020 was marked by the ongoing worldwide pandemic, causing many people to celebrate the holiday season earlier from home. Amid this atmosphere of celebration, the song “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Carey rose to new heights on the streaming platform, peaking at number one in over 18 countries, including the Top Global chart during Christmas week.

This time the song reentered the Hot 100 at number 29 during the second week of November. It reached the number one spot one week before Christmas marking its fourth week at number one. The song managed to remain in the Top 10 of Spotify’s Global Chart during the whole month of December in anticipation of Christmas Day.

The song earned a Diamond RIAA award for 10 million equivalent units sold. The year also marked a new RIAA certification for her Merry Christmas album: 8 times platinum (8 million equivalent units sold).

The Following Years and The Rising Success

The past 2 years weren’t any short of successes for the song reaching new milestones every year:

Re-entry Billboard Hot 100 3rd week of November

2021: #36

2022: #25

Number One on Billboard Hot 100

2021: 3 weeks at number 1 (completing 8 weeks total)

2022: 4 weeks at number 1 (completing 12 weeks total)

Record for Song with Most Spotify Streams in One Day

2021: 17.4 million streams

2022: 21.2 million streams

RIAA Certifications

2021: 12 times Platinum

2023: 14 times Platinum

2023: How far will the song go?

This year we wondered: is the song’s popularity saturated? To our amusement, Mariah announced “it’s time” with a comical viral meme on November 1, which caused the song to reach its highest-ever position on Spotify Global at number 50 for that day. Even before the traditional 3rd week of November, the song stands at number 32 on the global chart with over 2 million daily streams, a staggering 63% higher than the same time last year (12 November). It seems the sky is the limit for the beloved holiday anthem.

While the song usually features on the Denmark, Sweden and Norway Top 50 from October onwards, this year the song has been in the US Spotify Top 50 during the entire month of November.

With this year’s changes to the Hot 100 eligibility criteria (“a recurrent song must reach the top 25 to be charted in the Hot 100”), it was a safe bet to say the song would chart later in the year. But @talkofthecharts is already counting up points and the estimate is the song will chart at number 14 on the Hot 100 next week. This is absolutely unprecedented for the song and is already an indication of all the new highs the song will achieve. It’s already rumoured the Merry Christmas album will receive its long-awaited Diamond Certification by the RIAA this year – with a third Diamond album in her belt, Mariah will join Whitney Houston and Shania Twain on the list of females with 3 Diamond albums.

The song’s unprecedented peak numbers during the month of November are already predictive of a new record for Most Streams in a Day. Will the song also break her previous “One Sweet Day” record and reach 17 weeks at number one? Will the song be re-certified to 14 times platinum? How far will this song go? Will we be on Earth in time to see the song become the biggest-selling single of all time? It’s time for more history. And we’re here for it.

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