A TORRENT OF HOLIDAY STREAMS

The 50 most-streamed Christmas songs of 2018 were collectively streamed more than 800 million times during Christmas week—that’s a 221% increase over 2017. Nine of the overall Top 10 were traditional, Christmas-themed songs; the newest and biggest of them, Mariah Carey's “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” is now nearly 25 years old. Among the much older and unexpected titles in the Top 10 were classics from Andy Williams, Burl Ives and Gene Autry, temporarily ending hip-hop's hold on the streaming charts. By contrast, Mariah's song was the only holiday title in last year's Top 10, at #2.

Much of this year's increase is being credited to Amazon and Pandora. In a press release late last week, Amazon said it sold millions more Amazon-branded devices than in the previous year. Pandora, famous for its set-it-and-forget-it playlists, saw its paid streams added to the charts last summer.