This week, please join me in forgetting Thanksgiving exists and ushering in the holiday season. Especially in recent years, it has become increasingly impossible to mention the holidays without talking about “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. This year, amazingly, is the 25th anniversary of the hit song that still dominates holiday airplay, sales, and streaming every year. Every year, this song becomes completely ubiquitous as the weather gets cold and the days get shorter, and I predict that it will reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time on its 25th anniversary, becoming Mariah Carey’s 19th chart topper.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been gaining unprecedented traction on the charts in the past few years. While barred from appearing on the Hot 100 in the 1990s due to a technicality, the song made its first appearances on the chart in the early 2010s, usually peaking in the mid-20s. However, in 2017, the song jumped to #9, and last year, it reached #3 during the week leading up to Christmas. As I write this article, the song sits at #49 on the iTunes charts and it is only November 2nd. For many reasons, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is carrying considerable momentum into this holiday season. Why is this, and can it continue its trajectory into the top spot?
Memes will be a primary reason that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reaches #1 this year. Over the past few years, several funny videos have helped the song maintain its relevance and transcend other holiday music. For example, just before Christmas 2016, Twitter users shared the video, “All I Want for Christmas Is You But Just The Alto 2 Part,” which has amassed over 40,000 retweets on Twitter and tens of millions of views across all social media platforms. This video is hilarious and has helped Carey’s hit reach a younger generation in an engaging way. In addition, the social media platform TikTok has helped songs like “Old Town Road” rack up millions of streams and dominate the charts, so if “All I Want for Christmas Is You” goes viral on this new, hugely popular platform (which is not a farfetched idea), it will have an edge it didn’t have in previous years. I can easily foresee “All I Want for Christmas Is You” taking on a new cultural relevance this winter and reaching new heights in streaming numbers.
From being featured in Love Actually to being played in my fluid mechanics recitation on the day after Halloween, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has become a THE song everyone pays attention to at holiday parties and tree lighting ceremonies, and in 2019, a number of factors point to the song finally hitting #1 for the first time. Mariah Carey’s team clearly knows that it’s time for this milestone, as they released a behind-the-scenes cut of clips from the shooting of the song’s music video this week, and a 25th Anniversary Edition of the album as well. These factors will further increase the song’s chances of reaching the summit, whether or not the help is needed. Keep an eye out for the song as it again pervades public consciousness this year, because it will be very entertaining to see if it finally accomplishes this goal.
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