Columbia RecordsIt’s taken two decades, but Mariah Carey’s holiday favorite, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” has finally reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
How is it that such a popular song took so long to achieve this milestone? Billboard explains that when “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was first released, way back in 1994, it wasn’t commercially available as a single, and the rules back then prohibited it from charting on the Hot 100. Those rules changed in 1998, and in 2000, the song first charted — but only at #83.
Every year since 2012, the song has subsequently returned to the chart. Billboard notes that old songs are eligible to return to the Hot 100 if their stats — like sales, streaming and airplay — are significant. Last year, the tune hit an all-time high of #11. This year, it finally achieved top-10 status, mostly thanks to streaming.
Mariah tells Billboard, “This is such an amazing Christmas gift! As a songwriter, I feel so honored to have this song reach Billboard‘s [Hot 100] top 10 for the first time. I honestly never thought we’d be talking about this happening, but I’m so thankful to everyone who embraces this song as part of their holiday tradition.”
Mariah adds, “It truly warms my heart, and I am proud of this song that I wrote basically as a kid on my little Casio keyboard.”
