Hey, it's Kate.
It's that time of year again.
So we're rerunning a holiday classic.
It's about one hit holiday, how it came to be, why it endures, and what its success says about the larger forces shaping the music industry.
The song in question, Mariah Carey's All I want for Christmas is you.
Enjoy this winter.
Our colleague John Jurgensen has been living, breathing and writing about Christmas music.
One song in particular I've had like.
My ears tuned for those little bells that start the song.
You know, it might be in a car that's passing.
It might be on, on tv, certainly on the radio because my wife has Christmas music on repeat pretty much from Thanksgiving through January.
So I hear it a lot in my house.
Also.
That song is Mariah Carey's smash hit All I want for Christmas is you.
Don'T want a lot for Christmas.
There is just one thing I need.
This song feels like it's everywhere this time of year and the numbers back that up.
It is the star on top of the tree under which all other Christmas song ornaments can't even get close.
So last year it got about 309 million audio and video streams and by comparison, the second most popular Christmas song last year which was Brenda Lee's rockin around the Christmas tree, that old chestnut that got about 193,3 million streams last year.
All I want for Christmas is so popular it's easy to forget that it hasn't always been like this.