Year after year, people get a taste for Christmas music during the holiday season. And every year it is she who tops the charts: Mariah Carey. With her classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, the 52-year-old singer is now even expanding her personal record.

Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is back at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Songs. For the fourth year in a row, the song from 1994 topped the hit list determined by the US magazine in December. To date, no other song has managed to hold the number one position in four different years. The Hot 100 tracks streaming data, radio airplay and physical record sales.

With the return of her Christmas song, Carey also extends her personal “Billboard” record. The singer has been at the top of the Hot 100 for 88 weeks. In the history of “Billboard”, which has recorded the best-selling songs in the USA since 1958, no other artist has managed to do this. Rihanna is number 2 at 60 weeks, followed by the Beatles (59 weeks).

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” isn’t the only Christmas song on the current Hot 100. Numbers 2 through 4 are followed by three other holiday songs: Brenda Lee’s 1958 “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”, “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957) by Bobby Helms (1933-1997) and A Holly Jolly Christmas (1964) by Burl Ives (1909-1995). “Last Christmas” (1984) by Wham! followed in ninth place.

In recent years, more and more Christmas carols have been appearing on the Hot 100 at the end of the year. “Billboard” explains this with the increasing spread of streaming songs on the Internet. This development can be clearly understood with the help of Mariah Carey’s perennial favorite. When it was released in 1994, All I Want for Christmas Is You’s highest chart position was number six. When it came back in 2000, the song did not land higher than 86th place. But since 2012 it has climbed almost continuously.

For the tenth time in its 28-year history, Mariah Carey’s hit also tops the official German charts. That was also the case in 2021 and 2020. A week after Christmas later, the pop song – obviously tired of hearing it – had completely disappeared from the top 100 again.

(This article was first published on Tuesday, December 13, 2022.)