If this year it started to sound a lot like Christmas earlier than usual, it wasn't your imagination.
Halloween wasn't even over when Spotify users started curating songs about mistletoe, snow, and presents under the tree.
Christmas playlists created on Spotify in the US increased 60% in October from last year, the Swedish audio company said. Some Spotify users started creating Christmas playlists as early as the summer.
“It's a combination of feel-good and nostalgia, and these are trying times,” said Talia Kraines, pop editorial lead at Spotify. “In some ways, Christmas music brings comfort and I think that's a real part of it.”
In fact, eight of the top 10 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for the week ending Saturday were Christmas songs, and the top five were familiar Christmas classics, including Mariah Carey's 1994 hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Brenda Lee's 1958 recording of “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” and Wham!'s “Last Christmas,” released in 1984.
On-demand streams of Christmas music in the U.S. rose 27% to 8.3 billion this year, compared with a year earlier, according to Los Angeles-based data firm Luminate.
The popularity of streaming music has helped fuel a surge in users looking for more Christmas music, and early in the year.
The change has been driven by technology. In the pre-streaming era, consumers streamed Christmas music through CDs and records or listened to tunes on the radio during the winter months.
But the rise of Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services opened the floodgates by offering large libraries of songs on demand.
New platforms created and marketed holiday playlists, making it easier for consumers to discover seasonal songs and add new ones to their own song collections.
“You used to have a bunch of Christmas albums and rotate them while you decorated the house or wrapped gifts,” said Dave Bakula, vice president of data analytics and insights at Iconic Artists Group. “The availability of all music, at all times, is an incredible gift that streaming services have given us.”
For musicians and record labels, Christmas music has also become increasingly important.
Vince Szydlowski, executive vice president of commerce for Universal Music Enterprises, the centralized global catalog division of Universal Music Group, said he begins planning the annual holiday music campaign in January.
“For UMG and many of the artists you associate with Christmas music, it will undoubtedly be the most important time of the year,” Szydlowski said. “In some cases, especially with certain legendary artists, it could make or break your year.”
Artist Brenda Lee performs at the “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” concert at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville in 2015.
(Laura Roberts / Invision / AP)
One campaign Universal Music Enterprises worked on was the promotion of Elton John's 1973 Christmas song, “Step Into Christmas.” The song was featured in the Amazon Prime Video Christmas movie “Oh. What. Fun,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
John posted viral videos on social media with the song playing in the background that attracted more than 100 million views.
Those efforts helped increase consumption of the track by 44% this year compared to last year, according to Universal Music Group, citing data from Luminate.
“It's a very comprehensive campaign to continue to increase the visibility of that clue among Christmas perennials,” Szydlowski said.
Many of the popular Christmas songs in the U.S. date back decades, making it difficult for new, original Christmas songs to emerge.
Mariah Carey's “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been the longest-running number one song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 with 21 weeks, according to Billboard.
The holidays are an important time for older artists like Brenda Lee, whose rendition of “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” remains a winter hit.
In November 2023, Lee's version of the song topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart for the first time, 65 years after the song's debut, making Lee, then 79, the oldest woman to top the Hot 100, according to UMG.
Then there are artists like the late Nat King Cole, known for hits like the Christmas classic “The Christmas Song,” and Dean Martin, who died in 1995 and whose performance of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” It is especially popular during the winter months.
Nat King Cole in 1963. “The Christmas Song” became one of his enduring hits.
(Capitol Records Files)
Another source of appeal for Christmas music is that it is timeless.
It's really not affected by trends and the songs highlight themes like love, hope, joy and family that remind us of our friends, family and Christmases past, said Jimmy Edwards, president of Iconic Artists Group.
“It's the only music you can share together from any age. As Nat would say, from 1 to 92, right?” Edwards said, referencing a lyric from Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” “Those emotional bonds you have with that music stay with you forever… It promotes the best in us and all good things. That's why people love it so much.”
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