If it started to sound loads like Christmas sooner than common this 12 months, it wasn’t your creativeness.
Halloween wasn’t even over earlier than Spotify customers started curating songs about mistletoe, snow and presents beneath the tree.
Vacation playlists created on Spotify within the U.S. jumped 60% in October over final 12 months, the Swedish audio firm mentioned. Some Spotify customers began crafting vacation playlists as early as summer season.
“It’s a combination of wanting to feel good and nostalgia, and these are testing times,” mentioned Talia Kraines, editorial lead for pop at Spotify. “Somehow Christmas music brings comfort and I think that’s a real part of it.”
Certainly, eight of the highest 10 songs on Billboard’s Sizzling 100 chart for the week that ended Saturday have been Christmas songs, with the highest 5 being acquainted vacation classics, together with 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,” launched in 1984.
On-demand streams for vacation music within the U.S. elevated 27% to eight.3 billion this 12 months, in comparison with a 12 months in the past, in response to L.A.-based information agency Luminate.
The recognition of music streaming has helped to gas a surge in customers searching for out extra vacation music, and earlier within the 12 months.
The change has been pushed by expertise. Within the pre-streaming period, shoppers would play Christmas music by CDs and, information or catch tunes on the radio throughout the winter months.
However the rise of Spotify, Apple Music and different streaming providers opened the floodgates by providing massive libraries of songs on demand.
The brand new platforms created and marketed vacation playlists, making it simpler for shoppers to find seasonal songs and add new ones to their very own music collections.
“You used to have a bunch of Christmas albums around and rotate them through as you’re decorating the house or wrapping the presents,” mentioned Dave Bakula, vice chairman of analytics and information insights at Iconic Artists Group. “The availability of all the music, all the time is such an incredible gift that streaming services have given us.”
For musicians and file labels, vacation music additionally has taken on rising significance.
Vince Szydlowski, govt vice chairman of commerce at Common Music Enterprises, the centralized world catalog division of Common Music Group, mentioned he begins planning the 12 months’s marketing campaign for vacation music in January.
“For UMG and many of the artists that you associate with holiday music, it will be the most important time of the year, without a doubt,” Szydlowski mentioned. “In some cases, especially with certain legendary artists, it could make or break their year.”
Artist Brenda Lee performs on the “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” live performance on the Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum in Nashville in 2015.
(Laura Roberts / Invision / AP)
One marketing campaign Common Music Enterprises labored on was selling Elton John’s 1973 vacation music “Step into Christmas.” The music was featured in Amazon Prime Video’s vacation film “Oh. What. Fun,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
John posted viral social media movies with the music taking part in within the background that drew greater than 100 million views.
These efforts helped enhance the monitor’s consumption by 44% this 12 months in comparison with final 12 months, in response to Common Music Group, citing information from Luminate.
“It’s a very comprehensive campaign in which to continue to boost that track visibility among the holiday perennials,” Szydlowski mentioned.
Most of the standard Christmas songs within the U.S. date again a long time, making it difficult for brand new, unique vacation songs to interrupt by.
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has been the longest-running primary music in Billboard Sizzling 100 historical past at 21 weeks, in response to Billboard.
The vacations are an essential time for older artists like Brenda Lee, whose rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” stays a winter hit.
In November 2023, Lee’s model of the music topped Billboard’s Sizzling 100 chart for the primary time, 65 years after the music’s debut, making Lee, then 79, the oldest girl to high the Sizzling 100, in response to UMG.
Then there are artists just like the late Nat King Cole, identified for hits like the vacation traditional “The Christmas Song,” and Dean Martin, who died in 1995 and whose rendition of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” is very standard throughout winter months.
Nat King Cole in 1963. “The Christmas Song” grew to become one in every of his enduring hits.
(Capitol Information Archives)
One other supply of enchantment for Christmas music is that it‘s timeless.
It isn’t actually affected by tendencies and the songs spotlight themes like love, hope, pleasure and household that remind us of our buddies, household and previous Christmases, mentioned Jimmy Edwards, president of Iconic Artists Group.
“It’s the one music that you can share it together from any age. As Nat would say, from one to 92, right?” Edwards mentioned, 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 of us and all the good things. That’s why people love it so much.”
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