Mariah Carey Rules The Christmas Season…Again
Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" returns to the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 for the fourth consecutive year.
December is now more than half over, and the year is almost finished. Christmas is just a few days away, and for some, that means presents, candy canes, and perhaps even good old Saint Nick.
While not everyone celebrates the holiday, one thing is certain among Americans: we are all going to hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which is once again the biggest track in the country.
Carey is back at No. 1 on the Hot 100 with her annual leader “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The tune climbed to the throne from No. 2, where it landed last frame, and now rules the current chart. This is not the first time the ubiquitous single has dominated the Hot 100 – far from it, actually.
In fact, the singer-songwriter makes history once again as her standard rules once more. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returns to the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 for the fourth consecutive year. Unsurprisingly, it’s the first song in history to manage such a feat, which requires a previously-unknown level of popularity.
The tune is able to find its way back to the summit annually thanks to an incredible surge in both sales and streams as well as near-unprecedented radio play. Throughout the month of December, many radio stations in the United States switch from their typical format to all-holiday tunes, with Carey’s single typically ending up as the most-played title.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” actually bookends 2022, as it was both the first No. 1 song of the year and it looks like it will be the last. Due to the delay in when Billboard compiles its rankings and when it publishes them, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” often continues to reign over the chart into January. This trend began in 2021 and will seemingly continue into next year as well.
Carey’s smash has now racked up a total of nine weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. That sum is sure to continue to climb, as there are two more chart weeks left in the year, and it seems like the singer will dominate for both of them.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” was originally released in 1994 on Carey’s first holiday album, Merry Christmas. While she was in her heyday at the time, the singer wasn’t able to send the tune to the Hot 100 at the time as it wasn’t technically released as a single.
The blockbuster song only made it to the chart for the first time in 2000 due to a rule change. It would be another 13 years before the track found its way back to the weekly chart, due once again to another alteration in how the company compiles the rankings.
Since then, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has enjoyed an annual ascent, though it wasn’t always the champion we know it to be today. The tune broke into the top 10 on the Hot 100 for the first time in December 2017, and it finally conquered the weekly list in 2019, becoming Carey’s career nineteenth leader.
This trend is sure to continue for years to come, with “All I Want for Christmas Is You” flying back to No. 1 on the Hot 100 whenever the weather turns cold. Unless Billboard changes its rules again, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” could begin to compete with several other tracks for the most weeks spent atop the chart, as it adds two or three more frames to its ever-increasing total every year.
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