Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" broke a 60-year chart record this week when it returned to the #1 spot for the THIRD time, thus eclipsing Chubby Checker's long-standing record for "The Twist," which topped Billboard's Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart in both 1960 and then again 1962.
(Of course, a cynic like me is going to take all of this with a grain of salt, based on the way the charts are calculated today. Add this to the fact that for YEARS Billboard didn't even chart Christmas music alongside the biggest pop hits of the day and we have, once again, a distorted piece of history to devour ... but hey, it still is quite an accomplishment after all!)
Congrats to Mariah on creating an absolute modern day classic ... and a song that will likely live on for hundreds of years to come. (Considering that the song was first released in 1994, some 27 years ago, and that it has only hit the #1 spot for the last three consecutive years running, this really is quite amazing. Even more amazing is that THIS many people continue to download the song each and every year! I mean at this point who doesn't already own it?!?!)
She may have been banned in Texas (well, before December 1st anyway) but she's got the hottest thing happening on the chart right now ... and Brenda Lee's 1960 hit "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" is right behind her!) kk
From Chuck
Buell ~~~
There are
Home Holiday Light Shows and then there are HOME HOLIDAY LIGHT SHOWS!!
This house’s
Lights Program is just too cool! ( imhho* )
A Brightly
Colored, Pulsating, Rockin’ Queen Musical Medley!
CB! ( which stands for “Carolin’(?!) Boy!” )
*imhho = in my humble holiday opinion {:~}
A "White Christmas" is possible for
parts of Colorado!
But, from what I'm
seein', not so much at MY house!
While the Little
Boy in me must be disappointed, the Grown Up Guy that's actually me in
reality says, "Great! The last thing I want to do on
Christmas Day is Blow Snow Off my Driveway and Front Walk!!
Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry
Margarita Sunny Christmas!"
CB
And from Tom Cuddy …
Why
Brenda Lee is still rockin’ the charts with her Christmas classic
By Chuck Arnold, NY POST
Sixty-three
years after Brenda Lee released "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree,"
the song is still lighting up the holidays.
(Laura Roberts / Invision / AP)
Forget
Adele and Mariah Carey. There’s another legendary pop diva topping the charts
this holiday season.
That
would be Brenda Lee, whose 1958 holiday classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is at No. 3 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 — right behind Adele’s “Easy on Me” and Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — 63 years after its
original release.
Lee, who
is the only woman to be inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, recorded the Christmas
chestnut in 1958. She was just 13 at the time. Thirty-two years later, the song
had a cinematic revival after being featured in 1990’s “Home Alone.”
“It was
a Christmas miracle,” Lee, 77, told The Post over the phone from her Nashville
home. “When I went to the movie, I knew right then that it was gonna be a
standard.”
Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” -- Wikipedia Commons
Now,
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is having yet another moment thanks to a
seasonal surge that has also led to Top 10 positions for Bobby Helms’ “Jingle
Bell Rock” and Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
Here,
Lee shares the secrets behind her holiday classic, what she thinks about
being back at the top of the pop charts, and how she decorates her own
Christmas tree.
Congratulations on “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” still going
strong 63 years later.
Isn’t
that amazing? It has just been a gift to me, written by a wonderful man named
Johnny Marks, who was Jewish and didn’t even believe in Christmas, but the only
thing that would come out of him was Christmas songs. He wrote some of the
great standards for Christmas [including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
and “A Holly Jolly Christmas”]. And I
asked him, “How did you write ‘Rockin’?” And he said he wrote it on the beach
in New York [while watching] the pine trees swaying in the summer.
How does it feel to be No. 3 on the charts this week, right behind
Adele and Mariah Carey?
Well,
you know what, if I’ve got to be behind anybody, that’s pretty good company. I
love Adele, and I love Mariah. I love “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Once again, it’s an original song. And for that and “Rockin’” and
the other originals to compete with “Silent Night” and “O Little Town of
Bethlehem” and all the wonderful standards that have been around for years and
years and years, it’s pretty darn good.
What did you think of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” when you
first heard it?
I really
loved it because, unlike the [traditional] carols, it was a rocking kind of a
song. I just had a ball doing it. It took us probably two takes. It was in the
summer, and Owen [Bradley, the producer] had it all decorated up like
Christmas, and it was just precious.
Well,
I’m retired now. But we sing it at Christmas [family gatherings]. People will
say, “Come on, sing a little bit of ‘Rockin’.” And I go caroling, believe
it or not. I love to carol every year.
Do you have any special way you usually decorate your Christmas
tree?
My
Christmas tree is a lot of lights and a lot of ornaments that I’ve had since I
can’t even remember. I’ve kept them all. Some of them are pretty
raggedy-looking, but I wouldn’t replace them for anything.
Wishing all of you a VERY Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season!
We'll be back on the 26th with The Sunday Survey ...
Which will take us into 1972!
And then later in the week, a final look back at the biggest hits, tv shows and movies of 1971 as our 50th Anniversary salute draws to a close. (We'll also have another Sneak Peek at one of our brand new 2022 features!)
