For Christmas Eve, you may have prepared your list of songs. Some have become essential, like that of Mariah Carey, of course. What are the most listened to Christmas songs this year? And how much do they bring in to their artists?
“All I want for christmas is you” by Mariah Carey, it’s been the most hummed melody in the world for almost 3 weeks! In Belgium, on Spotify, this song is listened to nearly 120,000 times on December 24 alone. Thanks to this song alone, Mariah Carey earns each year between 2 and 4 million euros in royalties per year.That’s nearly 60 million euros in 28 years, a sum that the singer shares with her authors.
La Reine de Noël is at the top of the top 5 most listened to songs in Belgium this weekend. In second place is the band’s 1984 hit Wham.”Last Christmas“brings in nearly 500,000 euros per year to the rights holders, but it is still far from the record of this song: White Christmas, by Bing Crosby. More than 60 million records sold in 60 years.
On the French-speaking side, the song par excellence is “Petit Papa Noël”, the best-selling French song in history.
Christmas songs represent a market of 165 million euros per year in the United States alone. Each year, new melodies appear, and some will cross the decades to become real hymns.