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As holiday hits decorate the Billboard Hot 100’s entire top 10, and top 16, spots for the first time, another seasonal song, among others, makes a notable jolly jaunt: Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s “Merry Christmas” jingles four places to No. 38, marking its first week in the chart’s top 40 – and John’s milestone 60th top 40 hit and Sheeran’s likewise landmark 25th.
The team-up, which Sheeran and John co-wrote, was released in 2021 and first peaked at No. 42 a year later.
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In the Dec. 20-26 tracking week, the song drew 20.2 million official streams (up 38%) and 2.8 million in radio airplay audience (up 25%) and sold 2,000 (up 59%) in the United States, according to data tracker Luminate.
Notably, John ties Beyoncé for the ninth-most top 40 Hot 100 hits, dating to the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, start.
Most Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 Hits:
206, Drake
165, Taylor Swift
89, Lil Wayne
81, Elvis Presley (whose career predates the Hot 100’s inception)
78, Kanye West
74, Nicki Minaj
72, Future
63, Eminem
60, Beyoncé
60, Elton John
57, Kendrick Lamar
55, Travis Scott
John first reached the Hot 100’s top 40 on the chart dated Dec. 19, 1970, when “Your Song” jumped 49-38. He appeared in the top 40 every year consecutively through 1999 – linking a record 30-year streak in the tier – and returned with his 58th and 59th entries in 2021 and 2022, respectively: “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” with Dua Lipa (No. 7 peak), and “Hold Me Closer,” with Britney Spears (No. 6).
(From 1972 through 1986, John charted 36 consecutive Hot 100 hits in the top 40. The run included 20 top 10s, of 29 in his career, and seven No. 1s, of his nine total.)
Plus, John extends the longest span of top 40 Hot 100 appearances for a soloist excluding holiday fare to 54 years and two weeks. Among all acts and backing out seasonal songs, The Beatles boast the longest span: 59 years, nine months and three weeks, from “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in 1964 through “Now and Then” in 2023.
Sheeran first placed in the Hot 100’s top 40 with “The A Team” on the chart dated Nov. 10, 2012, and had most recently ranked in the region with “Eyes Closed” in July 2023.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric reflecting purchases of physical singles and digital tracks from full-service digital music retailers; digital singles sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from chart calculations. All charts (dated Jan. 4, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (Dec. 31). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Jack Harlow has heard the critics, but he’s not going anywhere. The Louisville rapper capped off his 2024 with a final message to the fans as well as the opposition with the introspective “Tranquility,” which arrived on Sunday (Dec. 29). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Harlow […]
Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” dashes back to No. 1 on both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts. The carol, released in 1994, leads the Global 200 for a record-extending 19th week and Global Excl. U.S. for a record-breaking 14th frame.
The Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts, which began in September 2020, rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territories excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of audio and video music services, as well as download sales, the latter of which reflect purchases from full-service digital music retailers from around the world, with sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites excluded from the charts’ calculations.
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“All I Want for Christmas Is You” tops the Global 200 (2-1) with 197.9 million streams (up 176% week-over-week) and 13,000 sold (up 5%) worldwide Dec. 20-26. The song has run up its record 19 weeks at No. 1 dating to the chart’s start via one frame this holiday season, five each over the 2023 and 2022 holidays and four in both the 2021 and 2020 seasons. (Harry Styles’ “As It Was” follows with 15 weeks at No. 1 in 2022.)
Wham’s “Last Christmas” pushes 4-2 on the Global 200, returning to its best rank, with 192.5 million streams (up 78%) and 13,000 sold (up 12%) worldwide.
With their latest totals, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “Last Christmas” claim the seventh- and eighth-biggest worldwide streaming weeks since the Global 200 began:
289.2 million, “Butter,” BTS, June 5, 2021
224.5 million, “APT.,” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars, Nov. 2, 2024
217.1 million, “Seven,” Jung Kook feat. Latto, July 29, 2023
217.1 million, “Flowers,” Miley Cyrus, Feb. 4, 2023
212.1 million, “Pink Venom,” BLACKPINK, Sept. 3. 2022
207.5 million, “APT.,” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars, Nov. 9, 2024
197.9 million, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey, Jan. 4, 2025
192.5 million, “Last Christmas,” Wham!, Jan. 4, 2025
185.6 million, “Flowers,” Miley Cyrus, Feb. 11, 2023
179.1 million, “Flowers,” Miley Cyrus, Jan. 28, 2023
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” drew its previous best worldwide streaming sum a year ago this week (159.1 million), and its previous second-best total two years ago this week (124.9 million). “Last Christmas” previously peaked with 142.6 million a year ago this week.
Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” rises 5-3 on the Global 200, after reaching No. 2; Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” trots 6-4, returning to its peak; and ROSÉ and Bruno Mars’ “APT.” falls to No. 5 after spending its first nine weeks on the chart at No. 1.
Plus, two holiday hits reenter the Global 200’s top 10: Michael Bublé’s “It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas” (11-8) and Dean Martin’s “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (12-9). Both songs have hit No. 6 highs.
Additionally, Lady Gaga and Mars’ “Die With a Smile” drops 4-10 on the Global 200, following eight weeks at No. 1 beginning in September. It drew 126.4 million streams (up 1%) worldwide in the latest tracking frame and has tallied over 100 million streams globally in each of the last 17 weeks, the longest such streak since the chart began.
Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” crowns the Global Excl. U.S. chart (3-1) with 132.6 million streams (up 90%) and 5,000 sold (up 27%) outside the U.S. Dec. 20-26. As it adds its record-breaking 14th week at No. 1, it surpasses the 13-week reigns of Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” in 2023 and Styles’ “As It Was” in 2022. The carol led for five weeks last holiday season, following annual No. 1 runs of four weeks (over the 2022 holidays), three weeks (2021) and one week (2020).
Wham’s “Last Christmas” rebounds to its No. 2 Global Excl. U.S. high, from No. 4; ROSÉ and Bruno Mars’ “APT.” slips to No. 3 after logging its first nine weeks on the survey at No. 1; Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” lifts 7-4, after hitting No. 3; and Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” jumps 8-5, revisiting its best rank.
Elsewhere in the Global Excl. U.S. top 10, Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” climbs 12-9, returning to its peak, and Bublé’s “It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas” sleigh-rides 13-10, after reaching No. 4.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated Jan. 4, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, Dec. 31. For both charts, the top 100 titles are available to all readers on Billboard.com, while the complete 200-title rankings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s subscription-based service. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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In the six-and-a-half years since Avicii’s death, many of the late artist’s colleagues, critics, fans and friends have tried making sense of his suicide and legacy.
A new documentary is now letting the artist speak for himself. Out tomorrow (Dec. 31) on Netflix, I’m Tim follows the producer born Tim Bergling from his childhood and adolescence in Stockholm to the global fame he achieved as Avicii, with the film narrated by Bergling himself.
“When I determined that he’d be the one who’d narrate this story, I thought that maybe it was how I could be close to him,” says the film’s director Henrik Burman. “Maybe that’s how I can meet him.”
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Burman began work on the project in 2019 — shortly after the pioneering artist’s death at age 28 earlier that year — where he initially planned to make an hour-long program for Swedish National Television about the final, posthumous Avicii album, 2019’s Tim. A longtime musician and music journalist in Sweden, Burman had completed the 2020 Yung Lean documentary Yung Lean: In My Head and was ready to take on another music-related project.
Working with the blessing of Bergling’s parents, Burman had full access to the sprawling Avicii archives. He found hours of interviews with the producer conducted during different periods of his career, including some in the later part of his life, when he was able to reflect on quitting touring in 2016, his problems with alcohol abuse, his approach to making music and more.
“There were moments in these interviews where he’d say, ‘This really describes me as a person, so if there’s ever a documentary made about me, you should use this to tell the story,” Burman says of the moments he discovered amid the archival footage. “He’d say things like, ‘If there’s a documentary, we need to talk about alcohol; we need to talk about the bad things in my life.’ I’ve been looking for clues like this — I’ve listened to Tim for hours and hours trying to understand him and put together the puzzle of who he was as a person and who Avicii was as this amazing artist.”
Beyond the material culled from the archive, Burman scoured the internet for other Avicii interviews, finding a bounty of clips on YouTube and other platforms “that are like, five or four or three minutes long,” says Burman. He and his team pieced together these tiny segments into the larger puzzle they were “working like maniacs” to construct.
Simultaneously, Burman and his small team from Stockholm were traveling between the U.S. and Europe to interview many of the key figures in Bergling’s life and career. I’m Tim features Neil Jacobson, who was the A&R for Avicii while president at Geffen Records; Aloe Blacc and Dan Tyminski, who worked on Avicii’s 2013 country crossover album True; Per Sundin, who signed Avicii’s breakout tracks “Seek Bromance” and “Levels” to Universal Music Sweden; Ash Pournouri, the manager who architected Avicii’s rise; fellow EDM pillar David Guetta; Nile Rodgers; Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who worked with Avicii on music including the 2014 hit “Sky Full of Stars”; longtime friend and early collaborator Filip “Philgood” Åkesson; close friend Jesse Waits; and Bergling’s parents, Anki Lidén and Klas Bergling. (Editor’s note: the writer of this article also appears in the documentary.) Burman’s “super long interviews” with each of these subjects allowed him to research his subject at the same time he captured footage for the film.
“We had thousands of hours of video by the end,” he says. But he had a guiding theme in trying to penetrate the superstar DJ world of Avicii and show who Tim Bergling was as a person. “In the material from the early years there’s so much humor and so much warmth. It’s very personal, before it got really big and things got harder for him,” says Burman. “That’s the thing I was really drawn to and how I started thinking about it as ‘Okay, who was Tim as an artist and a musician, and who was Avicii?’”
It took years for Burman and his team to edit down their thousands of hours into the 90-minute film, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in June and is nominated for Guldbagge Award, the biggest Swedish film award, for editing. (Winners will be announced on Jan. 13.)
The non-linear storyline goes from a sonogram image of Bergling in the womb, to lo-fi footage of the artist as a baby dancing with his dad in the family home, to him as a pimply-faced teenager, to his developing an interest in electronic music production and subsequent rise. In one sequence, Universal Music’s Per Sundin tells the story of manager Ash Pournouri asking for €500,000 to sign Avicii’s “Levels,” a number Sundin first balked at, but eventually paid. The song recouped the entire €500,000 within six weeks of its release.
The film also presents loads of studio footage, highlighting Bergling’s approach to making music and his special gift with melody. (Check the look of supreme satisfaction on his face while he and singer Audra Mae are in the studio recording vocals for 2013’s “Addicted to You.”) See additional unreleased footage from I’m Tim focused on Bergling’s studio process below.
But of course, given that viewers know how this story ends, the film is also laced with darkness. Bergling talks about developing a dependance on alcohol, saying the “magical cure of having a few drinks before going on stage” helped him loosen up before performances. His drinking ultimately led to pancreatitis and a general downturn in his health, which is apparent in scenes where he appears gaunt and haunted looking. Other interviews in the film discuss his later opiate addiction.
“I saw complexity from early on,” Burman says of tracing the lines of Bergling’s physical, emotional and spiritual health. “I didn’t want to point fingers or speculate. I wanted to listen in and see layers.”
The film is, of course, stacked with Avicii music, with the documentary being released alongside My Last Show, a 30-minute performance film from Avicii’s final live show at Ushuaïa Ibiza on August 28, 2016 that’s meant to function as a companion piece. “When you’ve seen this film, you want to also feel who Avicii was on stage,” Burman says. “It’s his last show, but it’s such a happy feel around it.”
I’m Tim comes amid a broader shoring up of the Avicii legacy, with the Avicii Experience museum opening in Stockholm in 2022, a biography, Tim― The Official Biography of Avicii, also coming out in 2022, and an official photobook being released earlier this year, around the same time as an auction of Bergling’s personal effects that raised $750,000 for charity. These projects have been done in collaboration with Bergling’s parents and the Tim Bergling Foundation, which his parents founded after their son’s death. The Foundation focuses on suicide prevention among young people, with Bergling’s parents focusing their work on the mental health crisis and the core factors leading to suicide among young people.
Burman says the thought of Bergling’s parents seeing the film was “hard because I was of course so nervous.” But seeing it months after its Tribeca premiere, they texted Burman to say, he recalls, that “they liked the warmth and honest perspectives. They also said it kind of felt like being able to get Tim back for 90 minutes.”
If you or anyone you know is in distress or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Free confidential support is available 24/7.
Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” crowns the Billboard Hot 100 for an 18th total week. The carol, which leads for a fourth consecutive week this holiday season, moves to within one week of the longest domination in the chart’s 66-year history, after only the 19-week rules of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” this year and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, in 2019.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” was originally released on Carey’s album Merry Christmas in November 1994 and, as streaming has grown and holiday music has become more prominent on streaming services’ playlists, it hit the Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time in December 2017, and the top five for the first time in the 2018 holiday season. It led at last, prior to the past four weeks, over the holidays in 2019 (for three weeks), 2020 (two), 2021 (three), 2022 (four) and 2023 (two).
The track also holds at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart for a record-extending 22nd week, leads Digital Song Sales for a sixth week and hits the Radio Songs top 10 for the first time.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” became Carey’s 19th Hot 100 No. 1, the most among soloists and one away from The Beatles’ overall record 20. It also made Carey the first artist to have ranked at No. 1 on the chart in four distinct decades (1990s, 2000s, ‘10s and ‘20s).
In a historic first, the Hot 100’s top 10 consists entirely of holiday hits. In fact, the top 16 spots on the chart belong to seasonal songs; Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” is the top non-Yuletide title, at No. 17 after reaching No. 2. Previously, holiday songs hit a high by infusing the top eight positions a year ago this week (along with nine of the top 10 last week, a year ago this week and four years ago this week).
Among the Hot 100’s top 10, Ariana Grande “Santa Tell Me” dashes 9-5, becoming only the eighth holiday song in the chart’s history to reach the top five, and Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)” returns to the tier (14-10, after reaching No. 9).
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric reflecting purchases of physical singles and digital tracks from full-service digital music retailers; digital singles sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from chart calculations. All charts (dated Jan. 4, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (Dec. 31). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
‘Christmas’ Streams, Airplay & Sales
Ten days after the release of SOS Deluxe: Lana, SZA has announced that she’s giving the project another makeover.
Despite the LP being out in the world for over a week — and already topping the Billboard 200 this week — the 35-year-old hitmaker revealed on X Monday morning (Dec. 30) that she’s officially tweaking some of the songs on Lana‘s tracklist in addition to adding new music to the fold. “Just got word all updated Mixes and new songs will be added Jan 6th,” SZA tweeted, noting that her fixes had been delayed until “the label comes back from holiday.”
“Sorry they can’t do it any sooner,” the musician added. “Just wanted to keep y’all in the loop … Thank yall for your patience ”
The announcement comes after SZA finally unleashed the highly anticipated expanded version of her hit 2022 album SOS via RCA Records following a lengthy rollout with several false starts on Dec. 20. On the same day, the Grammy winner shared that she had three more songs that she wanted to retroactively include on the tracklist — “Take You Down,” “PSA” and “Open Arms” — as revealed in a screenshot of a text thread with now-former manager Terrence “Punch” Henderson that she posted on X.
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Around the same time, SZA confirmed that she and the Top Dawg Entertainment president had parted ways, telling fans on Instagram that he had “stepped away abruptly” from their working relationship and that “sometimes ppl grow apart and that’s okay.”
On Dec. 23, SZA gave another update. “After listening w a clear mind I’m Switching some mixes out when I add stuff on Christmas lol,” she tweeted. “This means nothing to you but had to say it for me lol . Who knows u might notice 🤷🏾♀️”
Christmas came and went with no new additions, but fans can now expect the finished Lana to arrive Jan. 6, per SZA’s latest alert.
But while SZA may not yet be happy with Lana as it is now, listeners have certainly embraced the second chapter of her SOS era. Selling 178,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in its first week, Lana propelled the singer-songwriter’s second studio effort back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Jan. 4 a full 22 months after she first dropped SOS — the longest gap between weeks at No. 1 ever recorded since the chart began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.
Prior to Lana, SOS spent nine weeks atop the Billboard 200 in late 2022 and early 2023. It also earned SZA an album-of-the-year nod at the 2024 Grammys — which Taylor Swift ended up winning with Midnights — and took home best progressive R&B album at the same ceremony.
See SZA’s tweet below.
Just got word all updated Mixes and new songs will be added Jan 6th when the label comes back from holiday. Sorry they can’t do it any sooner 🥹. Just wanted to keep yall in the loop ❤️Thank yall for your patience ❤️— SZA (@sza) December 30, 2024
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Netflix is set to release a documentary feature on Karol G in 2025, the Colombian powerhouse and the streaming service announced on Monday (Dec. 30). The project will be helmed by Emmy Award-winning director and producer Cristina Costantini. The “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” singer took to social media to share a few words about the upcoming […]
What’s that on Dunkin’ Donuts’ new menu? That’s that Sabrina Carpenter espresso.
As unveiled Monday morning (Dec. 30), the 25-year-old pop star is the face of a new drink called Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso, which will become available in stores nationwide starting on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31). The sweet, hand-crafted drink will feature rich espresso, oat milk and ice freshly shaken together — or, moved up, down, left, right, oh, switched up like Nintendo, you could say — with each order.
In photos showing off the product, Carpenter wears a sparkly pink vest while posing with her new favorite beverage, still in its clear shaker. The musician also stars in a hilarious new commercial for the partnership in which she mixes up her own espresso drink, cheekily telling the camera, “I just love shaking that ess’.”
“Been shaking that ess’ for hours,” Carpenter adds as other people join in on the fun, including her grandmother, who declares while shimmying: “No one shakes that ‘ess like Gam Gam!”
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Then for the punchline: “Oh! ‘Shake that ess” kind of sounds like, ‘Shake that a–!’” the Grammy nominee chirps.
Carpenter is just the latest star to partner with the coffee chain, with Ice Spice joining forces with Dunkin’ for a custom Munchkins drink in 2023. In June, Jelly Roll celebrated National Donut Day with the company and shared that his own stage name was inspired by jelly donuts.
The Girl Meets World alum has also previously leveraged her highly caffeinated smash 2024 hit into a partnership with Van Leeuwen, unveiling a chocolate-swirled espresso-flavored ice cream with the company in June. Her new business move with Dunkin’ caps off an explosive year for Carpenter, who scored her first-ever No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with August’s Short n’ Sweet.
Carpenter also earned her first-ever top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024, with “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste” reaching Nos. 3, 1 and 2, respectively. Plus, the former closed out the year as the most-steamed song on both Apple Music and Spotify.
See Carpenter shake that ess’ in her new Dunkin’ commercial below.