Think for a second, and ask yourself a simple question, how often do you listen to Christmas music? For most people they would say anytime after Thanksgiving while others would say the second Halloween ends. Yet some festive fanatics would say they listen to Christmas music year round; can you blame them?

Every winter, more artists release Christmas albums because they have seen the success that a single breakthrough track can have (thank you Mariah Carey). Although it’s difficult for new Christmas songs to be instant hits, much of the appeal to listeners is the familiarity and classic feeling they get from old tracks. However, some artists such as Justin Bebier, Ariana Grande, and Micheal Bublé have shared success in breaking this Christmas stereotype in recent years. 

Now more than ever, the music industry is being influenced by steaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. Creating specific playlists for individuals preferences and moods has never been easier… or more popular.

Throughout the last decade, Spotify has been one of the fastest growing companies in the world. In a report released from Spotify, they had 91 million users in 2015. Since then, they have grown their platform by 511 million users, for a grand total of 602 million users in 2023. 

They have been setting the bar for music platforms that other companies have been desperate to follow. With their annual Spotify wrapped, AI technology, and simple user interface, it has been pivotal in providing mainstream success to many artists, especially when Winter rolls around. 

Christmas playlists on Spotify have generated billions of streams for holiday hits every year, along with millions of users saving each individual playlist. Because of this, the songs on these playlists are constantly getting circulated across platforms and getting more streams than ever before. 

For example, last year on Christmas day Mariah Carey continued her seasonal supremacy sitting at #1 on the Billboard Top 100, with Brenda Lee’s Rockin Around The Christmas Tree right behind at #2. Continuing this pattern, 14 out of the 15 top songs on billboard were all Christmas classics, with Jack Harlow’s hit Lovin On Me being the only non-holiday track on the list. 

The charts didn’t always look like this; in fact, you only need to go back a few years to see a complete change in trends. On Christmas day 2017, there was a single Christmas song in the top 15, and it was none other than Mairah Carey’s annual hit sitting at #9. The next Christmas song on the list was again Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree; however, instead of sitting one spot behind Carey, it peaked at #34. 

In a little under a decade, the entire music industry has completely shifted. There has been little room for any new song not relating to Santa, or snowmen, or holiday heartbreaks to make a name for itself. Most artists avoid dropping new music entirely during the month of December, due to the fact that it will get little attention during the holiday season. Unless it’s a new Christmas album, you’ll have a hard time finding big artists dropping new music in December.

This newfound holiday fever has grown so large that it is beginning to transcend the music industry. For example, in 2022 NFL superstar Jason Kelce and his teammates on the Philadelphia Eagles decided to make a Christmas album. It was destined to flop: A bunch of 300 lb men screaming into a microphone, who would listen to it? Yet, their project was so successful that they have just released their third Christmas album in three years with features from Stevie Nicks and Boyz ll Men. 

     Stories like Kelce and the Eagles help prove how influential Christmas music is becoming in our society. It doesn’t matter if you are an actual musician or not. If you have an audience, you can always make it larger by releasing Christmas music.

      So if you ever get the feeling that you’ve been hearing more Christmas tunes come wintertime, you’re probably not alone. It’s more than likely that your local department stores have been blasting Christmas playlists since November 1st, and that you are just another victim to the streaming era of music. For better or for worse, Christmas music is completely dominating the industry, and it shows no signs of stopping in the years to come.