Why Creating a Holiday Hit Is the ‘Holy Grail’ For Songwriters

Christmas music is big business. According to a Billboard estimate in 2022, Christmas records make over $177 million a year in the U.S. alone each year — not bad for a genre that is only consumed for about six weeks out of the year.

Those lucky artists, like Mariah Carey, Brenda Lee, Bobby Helms and Ariana Grande, who end up recording a Christmas hit find themselves re-entering the Hot 100 top 10 year after year, but what’s perhaps even luckier is being the songwriter who wrote the song itself.

Guy Moot, CEO and co-chair of Warner Chappell Music, calls writing a top Christmas song “the holy grail” for songwriters, given the song is likely to be covered by other artists in the future and could become a true Christmas standard. But Moot notes that because tradition plays such a key part of the holiday season, it’s extremely unlikely to write a Christmas hit today.

“Every year, people want nostalgia,” says Moot. “But I still think it’s possible [to make a new holiday hit]… It just might be that some newer songs need time to age.”

Streaming has played a major role in propelling Christmas music, and it’s fundamentally changed the industry of holiday hits. Instead of needing a full album of seasonal songs, in order to sell physical records, now the game for artists making holiday music is to write a catchy single that could work on a hot Spotify playlist.

Carianne Marshall, COO and co-chair of WCM, adds that the streaming economy has had a major impact on propelling the success of older, less-known Christmas songs, now that entire albums are no longer the focus. “In the beginning, when [consumers] were buying albums, you’d go to the classics. You’d buy Dean Martin or Donnie Hathaway,” Marshall explains, adding “No one’s buying the album for ‘Dominic the Donkey’” — but they will stream it.

To break down the industry behind hits like “Frosty the Snowman” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” and more, Moot and Marshall came on Billboard’s new music business podcast, On the Record w/ Kristin Robinson this week.

Below is an except of that conversation.

Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts here, or watch it below.

To me, Christmas music really does feel like an important part of the industry for songwriters, because if you write a hit, it becomes a standard and will get covered over and over and over by various recording artists. But it still feels extremely hard to get one of those evergreens. Is it worth the effort?

Moot: I think it’s one of the most difficult things, like the Holy Grail, to write a new contemporary Christmas hit. I guess people want that nostalgia. You grow up with certain Christmas songs that you play for your children, and it symbolizes Christmas. But still, people try for it, and in fact, we just actually had a writer’s camp. We had 50 of our writers in different cities put together a Christmas album, which we just released. We also wrote it to pitch for synchronization. [Music supervisors] often ask for the same titles, which is great for our business, but we want to also have new songs to pitch. I think to try and write new Christmas songs is challenging, but ultimately, it’s a huge prize if we can do it.

Marshall: It’s interesting too, because I think about some of the songs that are considered holiday evergreens that aren’t really even Christmas songs. They just tend to get licensed more around Christmas, like, “What a Wonderful World.” It’s a really big one that gets licensed for a ton of holiday ads. But that’s not a Christmas song. I think it’s that feeling of joy that gets captured in the song that makes it work.

Is it still worth it for artists to try, given how challenging it is to create a new classic?

Moot: While it’s tough to write new Christmas songs, they’re going to be on streaming services forever. Who knows — someone could pick it up. Maybe it will go viral. I think it’s difficult in the immediate but there’s always long term value in Christmas songs. It’s very possible it could end up on a top playlist, or that someone finds it and does a new version of it, or it goes off on TikTok. I don’t want to deter people from going out and writing Christmas songs, it’s just not immediate.

Marshall: It is funny which Christmas songs go in and out of favor…. We all know these classic Christmas songs, like ones from Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Brenda Lee, but somehow, a few random songs have also made their way onto streaming playlists [alongside the classics] in recent years, and now [these less popular songs] are all over the place, like “Dominick the Donkey” or “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas.”

Was “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas” not previously popular?

Marshall: Yes, but it wasn’t on the Bing Crosby Christmas album — no one was buying that album. My point being, when we were in the days of buying albums the most successful songs were really just the classics on big albums.

Yeah, in an age of streaming you can way more easily consume individual songs… Carianne, have you ever worked on a sync that totally changed the life of a holiday song?

Marshall: Yes, but nothing like today when things can go viral [after the sync.] There were definitely song songs that had a couple uses here and there that helped sell some copies and would extend the life of the album, but I think now one of the things that is really exciting is there aren’t album cycles so much anymore. So we have great songs, holiday classics we can pitch every year. There’s no time frame anymore. Part of that is awesome because nothing goes stale, but part of it’s really hard, because you’re competing against everything — not just things that are released within a certain amount of time. But this is what makes curation even more important than ever.