With Mariah Carey currently on her Christmas Time tour – marking the 30th anniversary of her most famous track and the album that bears it – party poopers Last FM have chosen the occasion to release stats that show that the timeless appeal of her signature festive banger may actually be on the wane.
Yes, following the credit crunch, Brexit, Covid and that budget, this decade only brings more gloom as it seems that even All I Want For Christmas Is You is losing its sparkle…
And things had been going so well for the modern era’s biggest Christmas jam. Having unsurprisingly been an exclusively December ‘thing’ through the 2000s, the song had begun to show an unexpected November uptick after 2010, and had even been encroaching into October playlists from 2018.
And you thought it was just your neighbours that were starting Christmas earlier and earlier each year…
But it seems that all of that is at an end and AIWFCIY’s ski slope of Last FM plays just took a dive for 2024. The latest figures show that plays for the song are down 35% when comparing October 2023 to October 2024 and have declined 22% from November 2023 to November 2024.
Yes, after beginning its ascent earlier and earlier each year 2024 shows a stark return to sensible normality following years of pre-seasonal insanity.
I don’t want a lot for Christmas
All I Want For Christmas Is You was released in December 1994 and has charted every year since. Incredibly though, it wasn’t until Christmas 2020 that the song finally hit number one in the UK, meaning that it took 26 years to finally make good on its Christmas wish
The song then returned to number one in mid December of 2022 – bringing in a total of three non-consecutive weeks at the top – but was edged off the top spot by Wham!’s Last Christmas, a song which itself would have to wait 39 years before it was Christmas number one.
It’s safe to say, therefore, that All I Want For Christmas Is You is a bit of a Christmas institution and the small matter of it making it Christmas number one – or at least maximising its earning potential by getting as close to pole position as possible – is something that Carey and team take very seriously.
In fact, perhaps acknowledging its slide and as part of her and her label’s mission to prop up its falling star, Carey had already officially ‘gone early’ this year and actually began the campaign for its resurrection back on 9 October. Taking to Instagram she revealed the cover of the 30th anniversary re-issue of the song, and the Merry Christmas album that carries it.
It’s still all to play for, of course with – at the time of writing – the UK’s Christmas-Based Top 20 (i.e. just the songs with a festive bent) looking like this:
Wham!, Last Christmas (number 2)
Mariah Carey, All I Want For Christmas Is You (number 5)
Brenda Lee, Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (number 6)
Band Aid, Do They Know It’s Christmas? (number 8)
Ed Sheeran & Elton John, Merry Christmas (number 9)
Bobby Helms, Jingle Bell Rock (number 10)
Arianna Grande, Santa Tell Me (number 11)
Kelly Clarkson, Underneath The Tree (number 12)
The Pogues featuring Kirsty McColl, Fairytale of New York (number 13)
Can Wham! Do it again as they did last year? (Get the full story of Last Christmas here and our choice of festive tunes here.) Is All I Want For Christmas Is You really doomed? There's just a few weeks to go…
Anyway, if truth be told, we much prefer Carey’s 2010 attempt at getting seasonal lightning to strike twice, Oh Santa! There. We've said it.
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