Your Great-Grandson's Holiday Favorite

Using Spotify playlist data to guess the next classic Christmas song

Dec 19, 2024

Each year, I try to do a little bit of writing about Christmas music. In 2022, I tried to use data to predict the next Christmas classic. In 2024, I tried to identify rare holiday classics by artists who had no other hits. This year, I wanted to return to my 2022 topic but take a new approach. Back then, I used page view data from Wikipedia to predict that Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” were most likely to be the next Christmas classics. This time I want to look at Spotify playlists.

Your Great-Grandson's Holiday Favorite

By Chris Dalla Riva

“The next Christmas classic,” my friend told me, “is bound to be ‘Christmas Tree Farm’ by Taylor Swift. She’s just too popular for that not to be the next ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’” Don’t get me wrong, I think “Christmas Tree Farm” is a nice song. It’s got slow, winding introduction that harkens back to the 1940s. But I think my friend might be off base. We can check, though.

Last week, I downloaded the contents of 991 Spotify playlists with “Christmas” in the title. Before using it to weigh in on my friend’s claim, I first decided to see which songs are on the most holiday playlists.

Nothing too shocking here. “Jingle Bell Rock.” “Last Christmas.” “Feliz Navidad.” All the usual suspects. But let’s see how this list changes when we only look at original songs that were released between 2014 and 2024.

Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” is far and away the most popular new Christmas song. In fact, it’s on 23% of all the Christmas playlists that I downloaded. The next closest, Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton’s duet “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” is only on 12% of playlists. Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm,” my friend’s prediction for the next Christmas classic, was on about 10% of playlists. So, it is in contention for classic-dom. But I think in a decade both “Santa Tell Me” and “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” along with Sia’s “Snowman,” will end up being more popular.

As a final point, while I was putting this together, I accidentally aggregated a list of the most popular Christmas songs with explicit lyrics. If you’re looking to have an X-rated X-mas party, here’s your playlist.

A New One
"Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call" by Bleachers
2024 - Synthy Holiday

Will Bleacher’s latest song “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” ever be a holiday classic? Almost certainly not. But a man can dream that Jack Antonoff’s brooding breed of synth rock will one day be played alongside Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey.

An Old One
"Green Onions" by Booker T. & the M.G.’s
1962 - Soul

As I trawled through the Christmas playlist data, I noticed that one person added the instrumental soul classic “Green Onions” to their holiday collection. This is not a Christmas song. I think they meant to add the ancient song “Greensleeves.” As you’d imagine, that song is on many more Christmas playlists. Silly mistake. At least the warmth of “Green Onions” sort of works for a cozy Christmas afternoon.

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