For a second week in a row, Brenda Lee’s 1958 Christmas classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In the final week of November, the seasoned singer, who turned 79 on Monday, became the oldest recording artist to top the Billboard charts and landed her first Billboard No. 1 hit.
This week, Billboard announced that Lee’s Christmas single again topped its Hot 100 list, which has consecutively knocked off Mariah Carey’s holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” garnered a record 41.3 million streams (up 18%) and 20.5 million radio airplay audience impressions (down 1%) during the Dec. 1-7 tracking week, according to Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts.
Additionally, the song sold 6,000 downloads (up 109%) in the Dec. 1 to 7 tracking week.
“The single holds at No. 1 for a third total week atop the Streaming Songs chart, after it first ruled the last frame of the 2022 holiday season; rebounds to its No. 4 high, from No. 12, on Digital Song Sales; and keeps at No. 33 on Radio Songs, where it has hit a No. 17 best,” the Billboard announcement states.
Lee, who got her start singing gospel music in church, opened up to Billboard earlier this month about recording the upbeat song at the age of 13. The holiday song was recorded and released by songwriter Johnny Marks and produced by Owen Bradley.
“The producer cut the air way down in the studio,” Lee said.
“He had a big Christmas tree and everyone was there — the Anita Kerr Singers and the ‘A-team’ [of Nashville studio musicians], as we called them. It was like a little touch of magic kind of sprinkled in, and it turned out to be magic. It really did.”
The song initially hit the Hot 100 in December 1960 and reached a No. 14 peak just two weeks later. It spent nine consecutive weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 from December 2019 and during the previous holiday season, according to Billboard.
“No way — really?” Lee said while tearing up in an Instagram video following the news of her song making Billboard Hot 100 history for the first time at the end of November. “Mr. Marks would be proud.”
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” reportedly drew 34.9 million streams in the last week of November, while Carey’s popular holiday song earned 34.2 million.
“I wanted to do it, and we did,” Lee said in an interview with CMT.
“It just came out every year and became what it was. The people were great. They went out, they bought it, they embraced it. Radio embraced it, and ‘Home Alone,’ of course, didn’t hurt it at all. And it’s just been a magical time in my life.”
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post.
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