No other holiday dominates our listening like Christmas. During this season, we are exposed to a seemingly never ending playlist of Christmas music. So its no surprise that there’s a huge amount of Christmas music available on Spotify. How much? Let’s take a look.
How much Christmas music is there?
It is actually quite hard to pinpoint the exact number of Christmas songs. First, every week during the holiday season thousands more Christmas songs are added to the set. Second, some songs are seasonal – is Frosty The Snowman a Christmas song? Not literally, but it gets a lot of play at this time of year, even by the antipodes. Finally, there are a number of other holidays and celebrations at this time of year such asHanukkah, Boxing Day,New Years, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, and Festivusthat we want to include in this category. So when I say “Christmas Music” I’m referring to western music that is played primarily during December. There’s probably a better term to describe this music, but terms likeseasonal,andholidayhave their own special baggage – perhaps something like music coincident with thenorthern hemispheric winter solsticeis the most precise description, but lets stick withChristmas music just to keep things simple. So how much Christmas music is there? In early December 2014, crack music + data nerd Aaron Daubmandove into the Spotify + Echo Nest music catalog and found914,047Christmas tracks – that’s just under a million Christmas tracks. Let’s unwrap this dataset to see what we can find.
First, some basic stats: Those 914,047 tracks represent 180,660unique songs and were created by 63,711 unique artists – from Aaron Nevilleto Zuma the King. The top 20 artists with the most Christmas tracks in the Spotify catalog are allpre-Beatles artists:
Artists with the most Christmas Tracks
# | Name | Count |
---|---|---|
1 | Bing Crosby | 22382 |
2 | Frank Sinatra | 17979 |
3 | Elvis Presley | 12381 |
4 | Nat King Cole | 11613 |
5 | Johann Sebastian Bach | 8958 |
6 | Dean Martin | 8000 |
7 | Perry Como | 7529 |
8 | Ella Fitzgerald | 6428 |
9 | Mahalia Jackson | 5883 |
10 | Mario Lanza | 5377 |
11 | Johnny Mathis | 5036 |
12 | Rosemary Clooney | 4538 |
13 | Peggy Lee | 4450 |
14 | Harry Belafonte | 4054 |
15 | The Andrews Sisters | 3567 |
16 | Louis Armstrong | 3481 |
17 | Gene Autry | 3411 |
18 | Doris Day | 2985 |
19 | Pat Boone | 2767 |
20 | Connie Francis | 2500 |
Yes, that’s right, Bing Crosby has 22,382 different Christmas tracks (!) in the Spotify catalog. Now, a little digression on what we consider to be a unique track. Music, especially popular music, is released in many forms. A very popular song, such as Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, may appear on a wide range of albums – from the original studio release to a plethora of Christmas Compilations and artist ‘best of’ albums. Each of these track releases may have different album art, different rights holders and regional licenses. Thus, even though the audio for White Christmas may be the same on each of the release, we consider each release as a different track.
White Christmas
Let’s take a closer look at Bing Crosby’sWhite Christmas. In our catalog of nearly a million Christmas tracks, 2,196 of them are Bing Crosby’s classic. I’ll say that again, just because it is a rather phenomenal fact – there are 2,196 different albums on Spotify that contain Bing’sWhite Christmas.It is hard to believe, so I created a web page that contains all 2,196 of the albums so you can see them all. Click on the image below to load them all up (warning – with 2000+ album covers it’s a bit of a browser buster).
White Christmas isn’t the only uber-track of the holidays. Here are the top 25 Christmas tracksbased upon the number of times they have been released on an album:
The most released Christmas tracks
# | Name | Count |
1 | Bing Crosby – White Christmas | 2196 |
2 | Eartha Kitt – Santa Baby | 1286 |
3 | Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas | 1285 |
4 | Frank Sinatra – Jingle Bells | 1121 |
5 | Harry Belafonte – Mary’s Boy Child | 904 |
6 | Bing Crosby – Silver Bells | 881 |
7 | Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song | 870 |
8 | Frank Sinatra – The Christmas Waltz | 811 |
9 | Rosemary Clooney – Suzy Snowflake | 788 |
10 | Bobby Helms – Jingle Bell Rock | 779 |
11 | Elvis Presley – White Christmas | 738 |
12 | Judy Garland – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 735 |
13 | Frank Sinatra – White Christmas | 703 |
14 | Frank Sinatra – Christmas Dreaming | 696 |
15 | Frank Sinatra – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 695 |
16 | Elvis Presley – Silent Night | 688 |
17 | Elvis Presley – I Believe | 664 |
18 | Frank Sinatra – Santa Claus Is Coming to Town | 660 |
19 | Louis Armstrong – Zat You Santa Claus | 598 |
20 | Dean Martin – The Christmas Blues | 575 |
21 | Frank Sinatra – Mistletoe and Holly | 568 |
22 | Louis Armstrong – Cool Yule | 566 |
23 | Frank Sinatra – Silent Night | 563 |
24 | Bing Crosby – Jingle Bells | 560 |
25 | Elvis Presley – Santa Claus Is Back in Town | 559 |
You can see all of the releases for Elvis’s Blue Christmas and Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby here:
So there are lots of copies of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby out there – but what are the most common Christmas songs overall? Which ones have been recorded the most by any artist? The following table shows the top 25:
Most recordedsongs
# | Name | Recordings |
1 | Silent Night | 19041 |
2 | White Christmas | 15928 |
3 | Jingle Bells | 14521 |
4 | Winter Wonderland | 9524 |
5 | Joy to the World | 9093 |
6 | The First Noel | 8731 |
7 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 8511 |
8 | O Holy Night | 7925 |
9 | Hark The Herald Angels Sing | 7727 |
10 | The Christmas Song | 7673 |
11 | Away in a Manger | 7544 |
12 | God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen | 7524 |
13 | O Little Town of Bethlehem | 7480 |
14 | Santa Claus Is Coming To Town | 6851 |
15 | I’ll Be Home for Christmas | 6844 |
16 | O Come All Ye Faithful | 6273 |
17 | Deck The Halls | 6057 |
18 | Silver Bells | 6044 |
19 | Ave Maria | 5847 |
20 | What Child Is This? | 5755 |
21 | We Wish You A Merry Christmas | 5619 |
22 | It Came Upon A Midnight Clear | 5019 |
23 | Sleigh Ride | 5004 |
24 | Blue Christmas | 4688 |
25 | Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! | 4598 |
Of course this data may be confounded by the uber-tracks like White Christmas that have thousands of versions by a single artist, so lets look at the most recorded songs by unique artists – that is, we only count Bing Crosby once for White Christmas instead of 2,196 times. When we do that the top 25 changes a bit:
Most recorded Christmas songs (Unique Artists)
# | Name | Recordings |
1 | Silent Night | 7406 |
2 | Jingle Bells | 4485 |
3 | Joy to the World | 3593 |
4 | White Christmas | 3592 |
5 | O Holy Night | 3536 |
6 | The First Noel | 3181 |
7 | What Child Is This? | 3150 |
8 | Away in a Manger | 3140 |
9 | God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen | 2871 |
10 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 2823 |
11 | O Come All Ye Faithful | 2675 |
12 | Hark The Herald Angels Sing | 2638 |
13 | Angels We Have Heard on High | 2494 |
14 | Winter Wonderland | 2489 |
15 | The Christmas Song | 2398 |
16 | We Wish You A Merry Christmas | 2281 |
17 | Deck The Halls | 2274 |
18 | O Little Town of Bethlehem | 2197 |
19 | We Three Kings | 2048 |
20 | Santa Claus Is Coming To Town | 1837 |
21 | It Came Upon A Midnight Clear | 1768 |
22 | Ave Maria | 1705 |
23 | Auld Lang Syne | 1603 |
24 | Silver Bells | 1599 |
25 | I’ll Be Home for Christmas | 1577 |
The songs in green are the songs that are unique to each list.
Artists with the most number of unique songs
Bing Crosby is at the top of the Most Christmasy artists mainly because of the widespread re-issuing of White Christmas. But if we look at unique songs (i.e. White Christmas only counts once for Bing Crosby), the top Christmas artists look very different – with classical composers, Karaoke ‘artists’ and music factories topping the charts:
Artists with the most number of unique songs
1 | Johann Sebastian Bach | 3681 |
2 | Bing Crosby | 1462 |
3 | The Karaoke Channel | 1098 |
4 | George Frideric Handel | 903 |
5 | A-Type Player | 835 |
6 | Frank Sinatra | 816 |
7 | ProSound Karaoke Band | 762 |
8 | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 691 |
9 | SBI Audio Karaoke | 641 |
10 | Mega Tracks Karaoke Band | 577 |
11 | ProSource Karaoke | 539 |
12 | Ameritz Karaoke Entertainment | 508 |
13 | Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra | 506 |
14 | Elvis Presley | 472 |
15 | Perry Como | 440 |
16 | Karaoke – Ameritz | 428 |
17 | Nat King Cole | 413 |
18 | Ameritz Karaoke Band | 397 |
19 | Merry Tune Makers | 385 |
20 | Christmas Songs | 370 |
Current popular Christmas crooner Michael Bublé, with 31 uniqueChristmas songs has a way to go before he makes it on to the most-unique-songs-recorded chart.
Speaking of Karaoke – there’s lots of Christmas Karaoke – 23,472 tracks to be precise. The top 25 Karaoke songs are the classics:
Top Karaoke Christmas Songs
# | Name | Count |
1 | White Christmas | 345 |
2 | Winter Wonderland | 333 |
3 | Silent Night | 312 |
4 | Jingle Bells | 309 |
5 | Last Christmas | 258 |
6 | Silver Bells | 219 |
7 | Blue Christmas | 204 |
8 | Santa Baby | 189 |
9 | The Christmas Song | 185 |
10 | Jingle Bell Rock | 172 |
11 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 171 |
12 | Please Come Home for Christmas | 163 |
13 | Little Drummer Boy | 163 |
14 | Sleigh Ride | 156 |
15 | O Come All Ye Faithful | 154 |
16 | Here Comes Santa Claus | 150 |
17 | Feliz Navidad | 146 |
18 | All I Want for Christmas Is You | 146 |
19 | O Holy Night | 144 |
20 | I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus | 143 |
21 | Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree | 135 |
22 | Santa Claus Is Coming to Town | 126 |
23 | Frosty the Snowman | 125 |
24 | Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer | 121 |
25 | We Wish You a Merry Christmas | 118 |
Top Terms
We can build a good list of seasonal terms by finding the most frequently occurring words in song titles. Here are the top 75 or so, as a word cloud created by wordle(stop words are removed of course).
Longest Christmas song name
There are lots of very long song names in the set of Christmas songs – the longest is this Christmas medly.
Andrea und Manuela – Morgen kommt der Weohnachtsmann – Medley / Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann/Leise rieselt der Schnee/Oh du Fröhliche/Ihr Kinderlein kommet/Süßer die Glocken nie klingen/Oh Tannenbaum/Kling Glöckchen/Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht/Alle Jahre wieder – Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann/Leise rieselt der Schnee/Oh du Fröhliche/Ihr Kinderlein kommet/Süßer die Glocken nie klingen/Oh Tannenbaum/Kling Glöckchen/Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht/Alle Jahre wieder
A great song for testing how well your music player UI deals with unusual titles.
Conclusion
One would think that with a million Christmas tracks we’d already have more than enough Christmas music – but, it seems, we still like new Christmas music. Ariana Grande’s recently released Santa Tell Me is climbing the streaming charts (currently #44 at charts.spotify.com).
Plus, there’s seemingly no-end to the variety of Christmas Music.If White Christmas with Bing Crosby is not your style, then there’s Blue Christmas by Elvis.
And If that’s not your thing, maybe you’ll enjoy Red Christmas by Insane Clown Posse.
This entry was posted on December 17, 2014, 2:54 pm and is filed under data, fun, Music, Spotify, The Echo Nest. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0.Both comments and pings are currently closed.
As an expert in music data analysis and a fervent enthusiast in the realm of holiday tunes, I can delve into the intricate details presented in the article with a level of understanding that stems from firsthand expertise and a deep knowledge of the subject matter.
The article discusses the vast landscape of Christmas music on Spotify, exploring the sheer quantity and diversity of tracks available during the holiday season. The author provides evidence by citing a comprehensive analysis conducted by Aaron Daubman in December 2014, who delved into the Spotify and Echo Nest music catalog to unearth the staggering number of Christmas tracks—914,047 to be exact.
The data presented includes fascinating statistics such as the number of unique songs (180,660) and unique artists (63,711) contributing to the Christmas music catalog on Spotify. The top 20 artists with the most Christmas tracks are also highlighted, revealing iconic names like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley dominating the list.
A notable point of interest is Bing Crosby's astonishing 22,382 different Christmas tracks in the Spotify catalog, prompting a discussion on what constitutes a unique track in the context of music releases. The article explores the phenomenon of popular songs appearing on various albums, each treated as a distinct track due to differences in album art, rights holders, and regional licenses.
The article further categorizes and analyzes the most released Christmas tracks, showcasing the top 25 based on the number of times they have been released on albums. It explores the most recorded Christmas songs overall and breaks down the list by unique artists to provide a more nuanced perspective.
The author uncovers intriguing insights into the most Christmasy artists, taking into account the uniqueness of songs. Classical composers like Johann Sebastian Bach, alongside karaoke channels and music factories, top the charts in terms of the number of unique Christmas songs.
The article doesn't just stop at artists and songs but also delves into Christmas karaoke, revealing a whopping 23,472 Christmas karaoke tracks. The top 25 karaoke songs are listed, featuring classics like "White Christmas" and "Jingle Bells."
Finally, the article concludes with a word cloud representing the most frequently occurring words in song titles, providing a visual representation of seasonal terms. It also highlights the longest Christmas song name in the dataset, showcasing the diversity in song titles within the Christmas music genre.
In summary, this article offers a comprehensive exploration of the extensive world of Christmas music on Spotify, backed by solid evidence and data analysis, making it a valuable resource for anyone intrigued by the holiday music landscape.