Festive music is making its mark on the charts as December arrives.
The first Top 10 incursions have just occurred with festive perennials Last Christmas by Wham! and All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey.
Last Christmas moved 16-8 (23,280 units – Official Charts Company) with a 41.5% week-on-week increase in consumption.
All I Want For Christmas Is You climbed from No.17 to No.10 (20,561 units) with a 30.3% week-on-week increase. It is the eleventh festive season and the ninth year in a row for both in the Top 10.
That leaves the rest of the Top 10 with familiar hits including long-running No.1 That’s So True by Gracie Abrams, Sailor Song by Gigi Perez and Apt by Rosé & Bruno Mars, along with three new entries by Kendrick Lamar and a new entry from the Wicked soundtrack, Defying Gravity, by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
However, Music Week has exclusive access to the combined streaming chart which reveals the full impact of consumption via DSPs and video platforms without imposing restrictions, such as the three-track limit under chart rules. Crucially for festive catalogue, those classic songs are penalised on the main chart with the imposition of ACR, which requires double the amount of streams to register a single chart ‘sale’ compared to current releases.
The full scale of the streaming impact is evident in the combined streaming chart, which does not apply those Official Charts Company rules. It shows Wham!’s Last Christmas moving from No.3 to No.1 with 5,957,074 streams in the past week (up 40.9% week-on-week). Based on the raw data, the Wham! track was the most streamed track of the past seven days with 237,651 streams – ahead of the official chart No.1 by Gracie Abrams.
Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You is up two places at No.4 in the combined streaming chart with 5,206,131 streams in the past week (up 27.9%).
As noted by Alan Jones in his charts analysis, it remains to be seen whether ACR is removed with a chart reset due to active promotion of both the Wham! and Maria Carey hits. Last Christmas is marking its 40th anniversary, while All I Want For Christmas Is You is 30 years old.
In the recent past, both tracks have reached No.1 anyway thanks to heavy streaming consumption despite having to overcome the challenge of ACR.
The only other festive track in the streaming Top 10 is Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee, which has the strongest momentum of the three. It has increased streams by 46.6% to move 15-6. In the official chart, it has climbed from No.34 to No.20.
Further down in the streaming Top 20, there are appearances by festival tracks from Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Bobby Helms and The Pogues feat. Kirst MacColl.
In the official singles chart, 19 previously charted seasonal songs climb or return to the Top 75.
Laufey has a pair of Christmas-themed songs in the main Top 75 this week. Winter Wonderland moved 85-55 (10,025 units), and it is joined by Christmas Magic (No.67, 8,403 sales), a new Amazon Original.
Amazon Originals are restricted to Amazon Music for streaming, but their new releases for this Christmas won’t be subject to ACR on the chart. That helps another Amazon track, It Can’t Be Christmas (83-49, 10,165 sales) by Tom Grennan.
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