Number of the Day
We Streamed ‘All I Want for Christmas’ 309 Million Times Last Year
26 years after making its debut, the smash hit is the royalty gift that keeps on giving
309 million: That’s the number of times listeners played Mariah Carey’s Christmas song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” via on-demand audio and video streams in 2019, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data and as reported by the Wall Street Journal. For context, the number two most streamed holiday song last year was “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee with 193 million plays.
Carey’s song is back at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 this year after ascending to the top spot for the first time last year, 25 years after the song was originally released. It now ties with “The Chipmunk Song” for longest-leading holiday song.
Digital streaming services like Pandora and Spotify have helped amplify the quarter-century-old song via recommendation algorithms, creating a snowball effect and resulting in the exponential growth seen in streaming numbers today.
Other artists, like Fleetwood Mac, are also benefiting from bursts of on-demand streaming, as Marker reported earlier this year when their 1977 song “Dreams” shot up the music charts — including to…
