Iconic Christmas Song Breaks 2 Billion Spotify Streams
By Movieguide® Contributor
Mariah Carey continues to cement herself as the “Queen of Christmas” as “All I Want For Christmas Is You” becomes the first holiday song to break 2 billion streams on Spotify.
“This is beyond incredible,” Carey told PEOPLE after reaching the milestone. “I’m honored to have ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ be the first holiday track on Spotify to reach 2 Billion Streams! I’m so grateful to all Spotify listeners around the world who’ve made the song part of their holiday tradition year after year.”
Though the song was released 30 years ago, Carey didn’t become synonymous with Christmas until the 2010s when music streaming took off. Since then, it has become the most popular Christmas song of all time. For every Christmas day since 2016, the song ranks No. 1 on Spotify globally, and streams of the song have grown 120% in the past five years.
READ MORE: MARIAH CAREY TOPS CHARTS FOR 93 TOTAL WEEKS THROUGHOUT CAREER
Despite its popularity, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” had its reign challenged last year when “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” dethroned it on the charts, making it the first time Mariah Carey wasn’t No. 1 during the holiday season since 2019. “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” however, has returned to its normal glory already reclaiming its place at the top.
But “Brenda Lee’s 66-year-old ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ follows Carey at No. 2,” Variety reported. “The song logs nearly 36 million streams and 20 million in airplay audience impressions. Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ is at No. 3 on the Hot 100; Bobby Helms’ ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ is at No. 5 and Burl Ives’ ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ rounds out the top at No. 10.”
READ MORE: BRENDA LEE’S ‘ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE’ HITS NO. 1 FOR THE FIRST TIME
“This is major and this is so gratifying to me as an artist, as a songwriter of course. You can’t come up with this,” Carey said. “I wasn’t sitting there writing lyrics like, ‘I’m going to be… in all these places and my songs are going to mean something to people every Christmas’ I had no idea. I just wrote from my heart what I wanted.”