December is the month of the year with the highest usage volume for karaoke apps, with volume increases of up to 60% compared to other months of the year. This is due to different factors: more free time for singing, the arrival of winter in the northern hemisphere, an accumulation of Christmas parties and social events during this month… and the fact that people begin singing Christmas songs and caroling with their family and friends. Some of them only do it for fun, others as a social event, and many also do it to spread joy in the form of a personalized song to their loved ones.
Christmas carols are highly localized, which is why we have not grouped the volumes together in this case, but rather decided to only analyze the data on a country level for our main markets by the number of users. The analyzed data covers the past Christmas season, more specifically the month of December in 2014 to ensure that there is a high enough volume of data to analyze, given that this type of song is rarely sung during the rest of the year.
As can be seen in graph 28, the most popular Christmas songs in the United States include melodies originally interpreted by famous artists such as Wham!, Rod Stewart, Michael Bolton, Taylor Swift or Lady Antebellum. In the US and Great Britain, it is a tradition for many famous artists to record Christmas songs or their own versions of famous carols which, in some cases, become big hits and return as Christmas classics in the following years. This was the case with the world-famous “Last Christmas” by the British duo Wham!, which was the most popular Christmas song of the past Christmas season in the United States, and has already become a classic of this season after first being published over 30 years ago in 1984.
In Spanish-speaking countries or in Brazil where this tradition is not quite as deep-rooted, it is the classic carols that are most successful. In the cases of both Mexico and Spain, the most-interpreted carol was “Rodolfo el reno” (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”), sharing the upper ranks with songs such as “Mi burrito sabanero” (“The Little Donkey from The Savannah”), “El tamborilero” (“The Little Drummer Boy”) or “Blanca Navidad” (“White Christmas”) in both countries. The most popular melody in Brazil was “Entao e natal” (“Now it’s Christmas”).
Graph 28. Most popular Christmas songs by country. Red Karaoke, December 2014.
