I don’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need. And I don’t care about the presents. Underneath the Christmas tree, I don’t need to hang my stocking. There upon the fireplace. Santa Claus won’t make me happy, with a toy on Christmas Day. I just want you for my own – more than you could ever know. Make my wish come true… All I want for Christmas is you.
Not my words of course, but those of Mariah Carey in her stupendously successful, and timeless festive classic from 1994, which, by the way, continues to make an obscene amount of money.
The song, co-written with Walter Afanasieff in allegedly 15 minutes, has been streamed a whopping 210 million times on Spotify.
Since it’s release, it has earned $60 million in royalties. That’s $2.5 mil per year, all in the time it took to get a pint during the World Cup earlier this year.
A study by the The Economist examined the factors which affect the streaming of Christmas songs, when it revealed the amount of times Carey’s Xmas classic had been played.
They wrote:
Despite its ubiquity during December, the appeal of festive music varies significantly by geography. Spotify provided The Economist with data for Christmas listening across 35 countries, and for every American state, on a day-by-day basis for the two months leading up to Christmas Day 2016.
The data demonstrates that music lovers in Sweden and Norway listen to festive tunes most frequently.
They added:
One in every six songs they streamed on Spotify during December last year received this classification (the list includes some 1,500 Christmas songs performed in English and local languages).
By contrast, during the same period in Brazil — a country with a comparable proportion of Christians — just one song in 150 was Christmas-themed.
Listening habits in American states also vary, though to a smaller degree: in New Hampshire Christmas songs accounted for one in nine streams, whereas in Nevada, the state where such tunes are least common, it was one in 20.
You can’t blame living in the middle of a desert for not being too fussed over sentimental songs about a faraway snowy paradise.
BTW, here’s Carey’s other Christmas song, that proves lightning never strikes twice:
As for the rest of the US, and the world, we all pretty much love listening to Christmas songs.
What you should take away from this is that school is essentially useless. Sure, get young people into a room to learn, but forget about algebra. Writing Christmas songs is what we all need. Everyone’s a millionaire and no one gets left behind.
Maybe one day.
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