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Taylor Swift spent Christmas morning cheering on her boyfriend Travis Kelce at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City as the Chiefs took on the Las Vegas Raiders.
About an hour before kickoff on Monday (Dec. 25), the pop superstar entered the Missouri stadium alongside a person dressed in a Santa Clause costume and wished onlookers a “Merry Christmas.” She was then joined in a suite by her parents, Scott and Andrea Swift, along with her brother Austin Swift and his girlfriend, Sydney Ness.
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In the spirit of the holiday, Swift donned a red Santa hat with the tight end’s jersey number — 87 — on the white trim. The “Anti-Hero” singer also rocked a festive look for the game, wearing a red sweater and black plaid skirt.
Swift wasn’t the only celebrity in attendance at the showdown, which found the Raiders defeating the Chiefs, 20-14. The game was also attended by Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark, who won Collegiate Women’s athlete of the year. Brittany Mahomes and Sterling Skye Mahomes, the wife and daughter of Chiefs quarterback, were also seen at the event.
Swift and Kelce were spotted walking hand-in-hand after the game. Kansas City Star photojournalist Nick Wagner shared an image on his Instagram of the couple strolling through a hallway at Arrowhead Stadium.
“Spent my Christmas waiting for these two lovebirds,” Wagner wrote alongside the snapshot.
Last week, Mahomes opened up about what it was like for the Chiefs to witness their teammate begin a romance with one of the most famous women on the planet.
“At first, I feel like everybody kind of stayed away, let [Kelce] do what he was doing,” Mahomes said in a sit-down with CBS Mornings‘ Nate Burleson.
“Then he started bringing Taylor around and we realized how cool of a person she was,” he continued. “So for us, there was a couple jokes here and there at the beginning. But now, she’s just part of Chiefs Kingdom. She’s part of the team.”
Imagine a land where it’s never cold but Christmas celebrations, and the holiday music associated with them, last for months. Such is life in the Philippines, where Christmas songs are played from Sept. 1 through the holiday itself, generating good cheer — and royalties for rightsholders — for almost a full third of the year.
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The global pattern of Christmas music consumption is that countries with colder weather start listening to it earlier, which generally translates into more streams, according to internal data from a major label shared with Billboard. The Philippines is the giant exception.
The country, which has a population of 109 million — a bit less than a third that of the U.S. — was the sixth biggest market for holiday music for Spotify in 2021, according to the company, after the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Canada and Sweden. (This data is skewed by the popularity of Spotify itself in various markets, and it and YouTube are the dominant platforms in the Philippines.) It’s also Sony’s sixth biggest market for streaming holiday catalog music, according to that company. In general, the Philippines is the 32nd-biggest market for recorded music revenue, according to the trade organization International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
One reason for the popularity of Christmas music in the Philippines is that it’s a predominantly Roman Catholic country — the only one in Asia — because it was ruled Spain from the 16th century to the end of the 19th century. Later U.S. rule brought English and an immersion in American pop culture. One popular saying has it that the country spent “300 years in a convent, 50 years in Hollywood.”
The Christmas season traditionally starts in what Filipinos call the “ber” months — SeptemBER, OctoberBER and so on — when the weather turns a bit cooler and workers look forward to a bonus 13th month of pay.
“There’s a stereotype that we can all sing, and we have a very communal culture,” says Victoria Maria Malong, Warner Music Philippines’ marketing & audience engagement director, domestic. “So we have lots of Christmas parties, with lots of food and singing — sometimes drunken singing.”
The big Christmas hits in the Philippines are mostly the songs you would expect — there’s a lot of “lean-back listening,” driven by playlists, according to Sony. “In terms of Christmas songs, it’s mostly the same around the world,” says Enzo Valdez, managing director of UMG Philippines Inc. (Universal Music Group’s business there goes by that name, since there’s an independent label Universal Records in the country.)
There’s one major exception, in the form of Jose Mari Chan, a performer, songwriter, and businessman known as the King of Philippine Christmas Carols. Although music isn’t his main job — he also runs a sugar company owned by his family — Chan is one of the country’s iconic singers, who is known for holiday songs like “A Perfect Christmas” and especially “Christmas in Our Hearts.” His biggest Christmas album, Christmas in Our Hearts, came out on Universal Records — the local company — but is now distributed by Ingrooves, which is owned by Universal Music.
As the dominance of streaming drives Christmas recordings to the top of the charts every year in the Philippines, just as it does in the U.S., Chan has become an online harbinger of the season, albeit one that appears earlier than Mariah Carey. Memes of Chan peeking through an opening door start to appear around Sept. 1, and he has capitalized on this success. In a country where tours of malls are part of promotion and endorsements are an important revenue stream, Chan has signed a deal with Uniqlo that has him singing the chain’s Christmas jingle, and appearing at events.
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Playlist promotion works much the same as in other markets, and preparation for holiday music marketing starts in the summer. Sony Music has a Christmas music team with a core of eight to 10 executives that expands to about 30 internationally. “It’s international music and some of ours,” Malong says, “so it’s Mariah Cary and Jose Mari Chan and our challenge is to put [Warner Music Group artist] Michael Bublé into the conversation.”
Emerging local artists want to be part of that, too, and “we also have a lot of younger acts who are making new Christmas songs,” Valdez says. The duo Ben and Ben collaborated with Chan, and the young singer Juan Karlos has a new song, “Maligayang Pasko” (Merry Christmas in Tagalog, a dominant language), which came out November 10. Now, Valdez says, “Karlos plans to do a full Christmas album next year.”
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When you’ve released nearly 100 holiday songs, as Pentatonix has, it’s no easy task having to narrow down that hefty list to a concise greatest hits album. But that’s just what the vocal group has done on its latest release, the 31-track The Greatest Christmas Hits.
“We put all the bangers” on the album, says the group’s Scott Hoying. And there’s “basically a whole new album [on Hits] as well, with eight new songs” added. In total, the album sports 23 previously released favorites plus eight new tunes. The set has found chart success on Billboard’s tallies, as it marked the act’s 10th top 10-charting effort on the Top Holiday Albums chart and its 12th top 20-charting set on the all-genre Billboard 200.
The vocal group (comprising Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee) has supported the new album on the road with The Most Wonderful Tour of the Year, which wraps on Dec. 21 in Austin, Texas. Fans who missed the trek can tune in to The Most Wonderful Tour of the Year: Live From Orlando on Dec. 22, exclusively on Veeps.
With so many holiday albums in its discography, how does Pentatonix select songs when planning a new holiday project?
“Honestly, there’s only so many Christmas songs, and we’ve released 94 of them,” Hoying tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to our interview, below). “So we do the ones that are popular that we haven’t done yet. But then also we like to get creative and do songs that are more wintry and have lyrics that involve the wintertime, like ‘Kiss From a Rose.’ I don’t think anyone’s ever thought of that as a holiday song, but in the pre-chorus it does say ‘when it snows,’ and we were like, ‘That sounds good to us!’ So we get creative like that.
“When curating [the songs on] The Greatest Christmas Hits … from so much touring and releasing so many albums, we’ve [done] subconscious internal research of what moves people and what moves us and what we love to sing, and what we feel would make the best soundtrack for people’s Christmas festivities and opening presents.”
Among the new songs on The Greatest Christmas Hits is the original song “Please Santa Please,” co-written by Karen Kosowski and Emma Lee along with the group’s Olusola and Maldonado. The song, which served as the lead single from the album, recently hit the top 10 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, landing the group its seventh top 10 hit.
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Classics They’ve Yet to Record: While Pentatonix has recorded nearly 100 holiday songs, there are still familiar favorites they haven’t put their spin on… yet. “I have this new obsession with ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas,’” Hoying says, “because I realized it’s one of the top streaming [and] selling Christmas songs of all time, in the top five or something, and we haven’t done that song yet, weirdly.”
“Or like ‘Silver Bells,’” Olusola adds. “We’ve never done that one either. There’s definitely songs we haven’t done, but you know we also have to pace ourselves, because there are only so many Christmas songs left. [Laughs] And we also want to get creative about how we go about Christmas songs.”
Looking to the future, Olusola says, “We’ve done pop Christmas albums, and so we’re thinking ‘are there different directions we can go that create a theme that allows for us to have a different feel on Christmas than we normally do?’ Which I think will be cool, so, I think we’re thinking about that right now, as we think about the future.”
A Dozen Years of Hits & a New Grammy Nom: 2023 marks the 12th consecutive year Pentatonix has released at least one new album, stretching back to its chart debut with PTX: Volume 1 in 2012. Through those years, the act has topped the Billboard 200 twice (with its self-titled full-length album and A Pentatonix Christmas) and won three Grammy Awards (among four nominations). The act scored its fifth Grammy nomination just last month for best traditional pop vocal album for its 2022 album Holidays Around the World. The set saw Pentatonix collaborate with a bevy of guest artists to highlight sounds and voices from all over the globe.
“We put so much heart and time and effort into this album,” Hoying says, “and we got to collaborate with the most iconic artists from all over the world. It was just such a beast to make … the logistics alone. It was such a creatively fulfilling project — to see it honored in this way [with a Grammy nomination] is really beautiful.”
“You never go into an album project thinking about Grammys,” Olusola adds. “You just want to make the best possible product that you feel speaks to your heart at that time and hopefully reaches people. … So I feel so thankful and honored and blessed that we could even have that opportunity to be recognized by the Recording Academy again.
‘Candy Cane Lane’ & Home for the Holidays: Pentatonix makes an appearance in the new holiday film Candy Cane Lane, starring Eddie Murphy, which premiered Dec. 1 on Prime Video. In the comedy, Pentatonix portray, naturally, carolers. But there’s magic afoot, and the group is seen mostly as enchanted miniature figurines in the film.
“The director [Reginald Hudlin] had been a fan of ours for a while,” Olusola says. “He gave us the premise of what he wanted us to do and we were in. … I don’t think we realized the magnitude of what we were creating. … It was really cool to see the end product. It was cool how they actually created us [as figures].”
“Because we’re figurines,” Hoying says, “it was a really easy process. We just went into the studio and sang these 10-second clips, knocked it out in a couple hours. But then we get to be in so much of the movie because we’re animated. It was a perfect scenario too, because we obviously would want to be on set and have our real likeness in the movie, and we got to do that at the end. So it was so special all around, and I’m just so happy it’s doing so well and people are loving it. The whole cast and crew and director and everyone were so kind and such good vibes. You just want good things to happen to good people, so it’s awesome to see it thriving.”
As families watch Candy Cane Lane during get-togethers this season, certainly many will also be playing holiday songs by Pentatonix around the house too. With so many households soundtracking their holidays with Pentatonix’s tunes, what does Pentatonix itself play around the house during the season?
“When I go home,” Hoying says, “my parents always put on Pentatonix, because they just are so excited that I’m home. I honestly listen to a lot of Pentatonix too during the holidays. But my go-to is a playlist of classic old songs from old Christmas movies, [like] Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. Anything that’s orchestral and one-track, mono. It really puts me in the Christmas spirit. If I’m looking at Christmas lights with [my husband] Mark or we’re driving around or something, we’ll put on the oldies.”
Olusola, too, has Pentatonix playing around the house at home, but for a different reason. “I have a 2-and-a-half-year-old and she’s obsessed with our band. Truly obsessed. She loves watching [the videos for] ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,’ ‘Please Santa Please,’ ‘12 Days of Christmas.’ She asks for it all the time during this time of the year. So in our house, it really is mainly Pentatonix during this time of the year. … I think also its kind of subliminally a way for her to stay in contact with dad, especially while he’s gone on tour. So I really love that. My wife has texted me so many times, where she goes, ‘She said, ‘I miss daddy, play Pentatonix.”‘ I love that. That really means something to me that I have such a close bond with her that she actually yearns for me, and so I’m very very thankful to be playing Pentatonix in our household because that keeps the connection.”
Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Nicki Minaj lands her third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the female rapper with the most chart-toppers in history, and how Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” jingles its way back to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
The holiday season is a lousy time for new Christmas music. From one year to the next, the top of the chart sees little turnover.
During the last decade, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been the top holiday song eight times, except in 2014 and 2016, when Pentatonix took the honors with “Mary, Did You Know” and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” respectively. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” are reliable runners-up. Of 2022’s top 10 holiday tracks, nine were also in the top 10 in 2021; six of them were in the top 10 in 2016. Reaching that region means outperforming some of the iconic recordings of the past 100 years, including Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Nat “King” Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” It’s tough competition.
This year, Jordin Sparks is hoping to nudge into the Douglas fir-scented scrum with a multiplatform approach to establishing a Christmas-season earworm. The American Idol season 6 winner recently signed with Epidemic Sounds, a platform that licenses royalty-free music to content creators, and released the four-track EP The Gift of Christmas on Nov. 21, which includes covers of “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.”
Epidemic Sound acts like a record label by releasing the EP to digital service providers and getting tracks on playlists. But the most powerful distribution mechanism is its army of content creators that attract huge audiences. According to Epidemic Sound chief of music Niklas Brantberg, music licensed from the platform is heard 2 billion times daily on YouTube and 500 million times daily on TikTok.
Sparks’ EP is off to a good start. The songs on The Gift of Christmas have been used thousands of times and amassed nearly 10 million views to date, according to the company. In just two weeks, her cover of “Jingle Bells” became the best-performing holiday track ever released at Epidemic Sounds.
Sparks’ holiday branding strategy also includes a three-part seasonal decorating and home improvement video series, Merry & Bright, which is sponsored by Home Depot and will be shown on the video streaming interface built into 22 million VIZIO TVs. Katlyn Wilson, director of branded content sales and strategy at VIZIO, says Sparks “was the perfect host for this,” adding, “She has done Christmas content before. Hopefully, it will be a great way for her to continue to establish herself in the Christmas space.”
The Gift of Christmas is not Sparks’ first foray into seasonal music. She released the holiday album Cider & Hennessy in 2020, and two of its songs were featured in the 2021 Hallmark Channel movie A Christmas Treasure, which co-starred Sparks.
The Hallmark Channel is so important to the holiday music business that BMG, Downtown Music Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing and Seeker Music partnered with the cable network for songwriter camps in 2023. Hallmark executives clued in the creators to what they look for when licensing music. “So far, we’ve had five placements from that camp,” says Mariana Migliore, director of creative synch at BMG — two of them by HunterGirl, the runner-up on season 20 of American Idol. “The Hallmark Channel will promote [the songs] on their SiriusXM channel and Spotify playlists,” she adds.
Other platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have followed Hallmark Channel’s lead and are getting more involved in Christmas movies. That presents an opportunity to get holiday music in front of large audiences that wouldn’t hear the music otherwise. “It feels like probably every other writer of ours is either an openly big fan of putting their music in that kind of project, or they are secretly obsessed with those projects,” BMG senior vp of creative synch Jonathan Palmer says. “It becomes like a bucket-list item for them.”
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