Mariah Carey had a pretty incredible Christmas, and so did Spotify. The streaming music giant was a mainstay in homes around the world at Christmas parties, and on Christmas Eve a decades-old song made streaming history in a big way.
According to Spotify’s streaming data, Carey’s 1994 banger “All I Want For Christmas Is You” was the most popular song streamed on December 24. The more than 10 million streams topped a list loaded with holiday songs like Wham’s “Last Christmas.”
And for good reason! The song was an instant holiday classic, but this year it seems people have found a new appreciation for the modern classic that somehow seems to be timeless. And that resurgence helped Carey break Spotify’s record for most streams in a single day for a song. The song topped the mark set earlier this year by XXXTentacion’s “Sad!” That mark was set on June 18th, the day after the rapper died in a Florida shooting.
Monday’s record-breaking streaming numbers not only gave Carey the most streamed track in a single day of the company’s history, but it also crushed the previous mark for a female artist’s single day streaming total. Even Carey couldn’t believe it, tweeting in exasperation about how the 24-year-old song shattered Spotify’s record books this holiday season.
Wait… What?! 😳😳😳 https://t.co/C2zw3hGQeK
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) December 25, 2018
On a less fun note, QZ points out that all those plays won’t translate into much money for Carey’s holiday classic.
Spotify pays whoever holds the rights to a song anywhere from $0.006 to $0.0084 per play. The rights “holder” can then split these earning between the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters, which means splitting pennies between many parties.
Assuming the popular song is paid at the highest price of .0084 cents per stream for 11 million listens, the rights holder or holders will earn $92,400 before splitting the earnings.
It’s still quite a feat, and certainly something to be proud of for a song that will celebrate its silver anniversary next year.
