Greatest Of All Time
Mariah Carey and the Vince Guaraldi Trio — as well as Charlie Brown — are the respective leaders of Billboard’s historical seasonal surveys
WE’VE MADE TWO LISTS and checked them twice (actually more than that): Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs and Top Holiday Albums charts, dating to the 2011 start of the Holiday 100 and to 1985 for Top Holiday Albums (see legend on page 22).
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” hangs atop the highest bough on Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs. The track has topped the weekly Holiday 100 for all but five of the chart’s 50 weeks so far, including the last 30 in a row since December 2015.
“When I wrote [it], I had absolutely no idea the impact the song would eventually have worldwide,” Carey tells Billboard of the carol, released on her 1994 album, Merry Christmas. “I was tapping into a bittersweet mixture of longing and festiveness. I had grown up wishing I could have a functional family Christmas like the ones I saw on TV or in the movies. So, I wrote the song for the little girl in me filled with holiday spirit. I’m so full of gratitude that so many people enjoy it with me every year.”
Meanwhile, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack ranks at No. 1 on Greatest of All Time Top Holiday Albums (marking an atypical win, and a holiday present, for the beleaguered but good-natured title character). The set, released in 1965 alongside the classic TV special of the same name, has logged a record 297 frames on the weekly Top Holiday Albums chart. It includes “Christmas Time Is Here,” which places at No. 28 on the Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs chart.