It’s the holiday season, and Mariah Carey’s perennial “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is not only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 yet again — it’s made history: It is now the first song in the chart’s history to have led in three distinct runs on the ranking.
While the song was first released on Carey’s “Merry Christmas” albumin 1994, its popularity has actually grown as the years have gone by: It reached the Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time in December 2017; No. 1 for the first time in December 2019(for three weeks) andDecember 2020(two), and now this year.
As “Christmas” rules the latest, Dec. 25, 2021-dated chart, it claims its sixth total week at No. 1 in its third seasonal run at the summit, becoming the first song in the Hot 100’s 63-year history to lead in three distinct chart runs. As Billboard notes, Carey’s “Christmas” has made four interrupted climbs to the top of the Hot 100, on charts dated Dec. 21, 2019, Dec. 19, 2020, Jan. 2, 2021, and now Dec. 25, 2021, tying 24kGoldn’s “Mood,” featuring Iann Dior, beginning in October 2020, and Drake’s “Nice for What,” in 2018, as the only songs with four separate ascents to No. 1 — however, unlike “Christmas,” the latter two tracks logged their four distinct rises to No. 1 over unbroken chart stays.
Not surprisingly, the chart is loaded with holiday songs, including six in the top 10: Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” replaces Carey at No. 2, Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” rises to No. 4, Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” holds at No. 5, Andy Williams’ “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” reach No. 6 and No. 9, respectively.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data — see the full chart here.
In non-holiday-song news, Adele’s “Easy on Me” slips to No. 3 on the Hot 100, after seven nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1, the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” slides 4-6 on the Hot 100, after seven weeks at No. 1. Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” climbs to No. 8 and Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow’s “Industry Baby” slips to No. 10.
Meanwhile, on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, Adele’s “30” is at No. 1 for a fourth consecutive week with 183,000 equivalent album units, while Juice WRLD’s second posthumous album,“Fighting Demons,” debuts at No. 2 with 119,000. Following are Taylor Swift’s second re-recorded album,“Red (Taylor’s Version),” which slips 2-3 in its fifth week, while Michael Bublé’s“Christmas” holds at No. 4 with 64,000 equivalent album units. Olivia Rodrigo’s“Sour” remains at No. 5 with 60,000 units.
See the full albums chart here.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based onmulti-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
