As 2022 drew to a close, listeners wanted to load two things on their streaming apps: SZA’s new album, and lots and lots of Christmas music.
Both dominate the charts, with SZA, a New Jersey-raised R&B singer and songwriter, holding the top spot on the Billboard 200 with “SOS,” her long-awaited second LP, and Mariah Carey’s holiday war horse “All I Want for Christmas Is You” leading a storm of tinsel at the top of the Hot 100 singles list.
“SOS” is No. 1 for a third time with 169 million streams in the United States, which accounted for virtually all of its 128,000 “equivalent album units,” according to Billboard and its data provider, Luminate. In the three weeks since it was released, SZA’s album has racked up a total of about 810 million clicks on streaming services.
On the Hot 100, “All I Want” holds at No. 1 for a fourth time this season, and its 12th time overall. (Released in 1994, Carey’s song did not reach No. 1 until 2019.)
Billboard’s weekly tracking period starts Friday, and with Christmas falling on a Sunday, the final week of the year still had four days following the holiday. But seasonal singles still dominated listening, with a total of eight tracks — all of them decades old — in the Top 10.
Besides “All I Want,” they include Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (No. 2), Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” (No. 3), Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (No. 4), Burl Ives’s “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (No. 5), Andy Williams’s “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (No. 6), José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” (No. 7) and Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” (No. 9).
The only non-holiday releases in the Top 10 are Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” (No. 8) and Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s “Unholy” (No. 10).
Back on the album chart, Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 2, but Santa is close behind there as well: Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” is No. 3 and Cole’s “The Christmas Song” LP is No. 5. “Heroes & Villains” by the rap super-producer Metro Boomin holds at No. 4.
