Tag: Wham!

Holiday Listening Starts Now on Spotify

October 1, 2026

red text on patterned red and light red background reading "cue the cheer" in olde timey holiday font

The calendar may say it’s fall, but on Spotify, the holiday season has begun. This year, we’re getting into the spirit early with Holidays on Spotify, a season-long celebration packed with surprise data drops, new releases, and plenty of festive moments to soundtrack the months ahead.

If you’ve had the itch for a wintry jingle lately, you aren’t alone. Holiday listening has already begun in earnest on Spotify: We’re seeing festive favorites being streamed 36.2 million times a day on average, with “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” by Bleachers currently the most-popular holiday-themed track of the year, followed by “Merry Christmas, i miss you” by Alex Crichton, “Snowman” by Sia, “Last Christmas” by Wham!, and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey.

While December is still the main event, for plenty of fans holiday music never gets packed away with the ornaments. In fact, Spotify users created more than 100,000 holiday playlists this September alone—proof that some listeners keep the festive spirit alive all year long.

The holiday hits that keep coming back

When it comes to seasonal staples, fans have their favorites. Mariah Carey’s ever-popular “All I Want for Christmas Is You” remains Spotify’s top-streamed holiday song, while Michael Bublé holds the crown as the most popular holiday artist overall.

And plenty more classics are still in rotation. Last December, all five of the top holiday tracks in the U.S. were more than 30 years old, including “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee and Dean Martin’s “Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

The countries where the holiday party starts early

While listeners in the U.S. may be turning up the holiday tunes in late October, some countries start even earlier. Places like Barbados, Liechtenstein, Denmark, and Iceland are the first to the holiday party, with Barbadian listeners ramping up as early as October 1—a full month before the global average of October 30.

 And then there’s the Philippines, a country known for having one of the longest seasonal celebrations. In September, festive listening accounted for 1.3% of total streams, more than double the next-highest market, Colombia. The country has also racked up the most holiday-related searches on Spotify so far this year, followed by the U.S., U.K., Indonesia, and Germany.

More holiday surprises are coming soon

As always, Spotify is the place to find the gifts that keep on giving, including special releases like Spotify Singles: Holiday Collection, where artists put their spin on holiday classics. 

 At the end of the season, we’ll share the top songs, artists, and albums that defined holiday listening in 2026. Until then, we wish you a very merry (and extra-long) holiday season.

Get in the Holiday Spirit with Dolly Parton, Jose Mari Chan, Black Pumas, and More

November 18, 2020

In a year that’s brought unprecedented challenges, Spotify data suggests that listeners may be seeking comfort from holiday music earlier than usual in 2020. While festive playlists usually snowball in December, we’re seeing our most popular holiday playlist, Christmas Hits, streamed at a higher rate in September and October compared to previous years. Many think it’s never too early to crank yuletide tunes, and it shows: Listeners have already streamed more than 6.5 billion minutes of Christmas tracks this year.

In this episode of our podcast, Spotify: For the Record, we look at which songs are making it to the top of our listeners’ Christmas lists. One favorite is “Last Christmas,” which was originally released in 1984 by Wham! To date, there are about 1,200 covers of the hit on Spotify.

In addition to digging into the data, we also get in the spirit by chatting with some iconic artists about their holiday hits, including Dolly Parton, who recently released her first Christmas album in 30 years. In the episode, the country legend joins us to talk about the inspiration behind A Holly Dolly Christmas and what it was like to duet with Michael Bublé in the song “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas.”

Aside from Parton, we also chat with beloved Filipino artist Jose Mari Chan. Known as “The Father of Christmas Music” in the Philippines, Chan shares the inspiration behind his iconic holiday tunes, which have been a staple of festive celebration in the country for the last three decades.

 

This episode is no longer available as of November 2021, however you can get more great stories and news delivered audibly by following our podcasts, Spotify: For the Record, Spotify: Mic Check, and Spotify: Discover This.