Mariah Carey, EXO dominate winter playlists

연합뉴스 / 2025-12-12 13:31:09

▲ A giant Christmas tree is lighted in Seoul Square in central Seoul in this undated Yonhap file photo. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Yonhap) -- As winter arrives, people reach for thick coats—and music fans begin adding last year’s holiday songs back to their playlists.

This year, too, familiar seasonal tracks by Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande and EXO are once again climbing the charts.

On Melon’s daily chart for Wednesday, EXO’s “The First Snow” ranked ninth, fromis_9’s “White Wish” 44th and Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” 58th, with seven winter songs appearing in total.

Among them, “White Wish” was the only release from this year—a remake of Kim Min-jong’s 2001 track.

New carols such as Chungha’s “Christmas Again” and tripleS’ “Christmas Alone” failed to enter the chart.

The U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for Dec. 9 showed a similar pattern.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which has topped the Hot 100 at year’s end every year since 2019, reached No. 1 again, securing its position as the most popular holiday song for a seventh straight year.

Wham!’s 1984 hit “Last Christmas” placed second, while Brenda Lee’s 1958 track “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was third.

Since streaming became dominant, older seasonal tracks have repeatedly pushed new carols off the upper ranks.

Of nine songs that entered Melon’s December monthly chart for at least two years between 2020 and 2024, eight were previously released tracks, including “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” and IU’s “Merry Christmas in Advance.”

Only one newly released carol—Lee Moo-jin and Heize’s 2021 duet “When It Snows”—managed to stay on the December chart for two or more years.

Circle Chart’s December rankings last year had no newly released winter songs within the top 400.

Pop music critic Lim Hee-yoon said the nostalgic and family-oriented nature of Christmas boosts classic carols, and that streaming makes chart resurgences possible as consumption accumulates each year.

As a result, many in the music industry say it is becoming harder to release new seasonal songs. Rising marketing and production costs, combined with the short lifespan of holiday tracks, make the risk greater than the reward.

An industry official said that even remakes—which are relatively advantageous—struggle to chart nowadays, making it hard to justify releasing new songs amid rising costs.

Some say AI-generated music could offer an alternative.

Music data journalist Kim Jin-woo said AI reduces risk for producers and allows faster creation of new tracks, potentially revitalizing the fading winter-season song market.