If Christmas started to look like earlier than usual this year, it wasn't a figment of your imagination.
Halloween isn't over yet when Spotify users start creating songs about mistletoe, snow and presents under the tree.
The number of holiday playlists created on Spotify in the US jumped 60% in October compared to last year, according to the Swedish audio company. Some Spotify users started creating holiday playlists back in the summer.
“It’s a combination of wanting to feel good and nostalgia, and these are testing times,” said Talia Cranes, head of pop music at Spotify. “Somehow Christmas music brings comfort, and I think that’s an important part of it.”
Indeed, eight of the top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending Saturday were Christmas songs, and the top five were familiar holiday classics, including Mariah Carey's 1994 hit.”All I want for Christmas is you“, Brenda Lee's 1958 recording “Light up around the Christmas treeand “Last Christmas” by Wham!, released in 1984.
On-demand holiday music streams in the U.S. are up 27% this year to 8.3 billion compared to last year, according to Los Angeles-based Luminate.
The popularity of music streaming has contributed to an increase in the number of users seeking out more holiday music, even earlier in the year.
This change has been driven by technology. In the pre-streaming era, consumers played Christmas music on CDs and recorded tunes or listened to tunes on the radio during the winter months.
But the emergence of Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services has opened the floodgates, offering large libraries of songs on demand.
New platforms created and sold holiday playlists, making it easier for consumers to discover seasonal songs and add new ones to their own song collections.
“It used to be that you had a bunch of Christmas albums and you would flip through them while you were decorating the house or wrapping gifts,” said Dave Bakula, vice president of analytics and data science at Iconic Artists Group. “Having all the music available at any time is an incredible gift that streaming services have given us.”
For musicians and record labels, holiday music is also becoming 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 yearlong holiday music campaign in January.
“For UMG and many of the artists you associate with holiday music, this will without a doubt be the most important time of the year,” Szydlowski said. “In some cases, especially with some legendary artists, it can make or break their 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 of the campaigns Universal Music Enterprises worked on was to promote Elton John's 1973 holiday song “Step In Christmas.” The song was featured in the Amazon Prime Video holiday movie “Oh.” What. Fun” starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
John posted viral videos on social media with the song playing in the background, which have received over 100 million views.
Those efforts helped boost track consumption by 44% this year compared to last year, Universal Music Group said, citing data from Luminate.
“This is a very large campaign to further increase the awareness of this trend among holiday perennials,” Szydlowski said.
Many of the popular Christmas songs in the United States date back decades, making it difficult to come up with new, original holiday songs.
Mariah Carey”All I want for Christmas is youAccording to the Billboard Hot 100, the song remained at number one for the longest time in Billboard Hot 100 history, at 21 weeks. Billboard.
The holidays are an important time for older artists like Brenda Lee, whose version of “Rockin' About the Christmas Tree” remains a winter hit.
In November 2023, Lee's version of the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time, 65 years after the song debuted, 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 holiday classic “The Christmas Song,” and Dean Martin, who died in 1995 and whose rendition of “Let It Snow!” Let It Snow! Let It Snow! especially popular during the winter months.
Nat King Cole in 1963. “The Christmas Song” became one of his enduring hits.
(Capitol Records Archive)
Another source of Christmas music's appeal is that it is timeless.
It's not really influenced 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 A group of iconic artists.
“This is the only music you can listen to together at any age. As Nat would say, from one year old to 92, right?” Edwards said, referencing lyrics from Cole's “A Christmas Carol.” “The emotional connections you make with this music will stay with you forever… It brings out the best of us and all good things. That's why people love it so much.”
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