| Wednesday 17 December 2014 |
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Mariah Carey tops Holiday 100 Songs chart
Mariah Carey jingles all the way back to No. 1 on Billboard's Holiday 100 songs chart with her modern classic carol "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which rises 2-1. (Like the Billboard Hot 100, the Holiday 100 ranks songs via a formula blending sales, radio airplay and streaming, only for holiday songs of all eras. All charts will refresh tomorrow, December 18, on Billboard.com.)
Since the Holiday 100 launched in December 2011, "Christmas" is the only song that has reigned in each season. It tallies its 14th week at the summit, of 18 total weeks that the chart has been tabulated. "Christmas" reclaims the Holiday 100 summit despite not leading any of the chart's main component rankings. It places at No. 2 on Holiday Digital Songs, with 37,000 downloads sold (down 3 percent), according to Nielsen Music; No. 3 on Holiday Airplay (25.3 million in radio audience, up 18 percent); and No. 4 on Holiday Streaming Songs (2.1 million U.S. streams, up 19 percent).
Still, its balanced points spread is enough to dethrone Pentatonix's "Mary, Did You Know?" after two weeks atop the Holiday 100. (The only songs to lead the list other than "Christmas" and "Mary": Penatonix's "Little Drummer Boy," on December 21, 2013, and Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe," on January 7, 2012.)
Rounding out the Holiday 100's top five this week: Brenda Lee's 1958 standard "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (3-3); Ariana Grande's new song for the season "Santa Tell Me" (7-4); and Nat King Cole's iconic "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)" (which the late legend recorded more than once) (4-5).
"To me, it's kind of a cosmic occurrence that happens once every five billion years," Walter Afanasieff, who co-wrote "Christmas" with Carey in 1994, told Billboard in October of the song's perennial success. "We feel lucky, because it was the last major song to enter that Christmas canon. Then the door slammed shut. Although I'm sure there's going to be another one; there has to be."
"Christmas," says Afanasieff, "just keeps growing and growing. I believe it will be the most successful, popular Christmas song of all time." (Billboard)
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