After years of rocking around the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, Brenda Lee‘s timeless holiday classic – ‘Rockin Around the Christmas Tree‘ – has finally rocked all the way to the chart’s summit.
Details inside.
Released November 1958, Lee’s ‘Rockin’ is an all-time favorite among Christmas songs.
Although it peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 in the 60’s, the Johnny Marks-penned tune didn’t reach its highest chart prominence until Billboard changed the rules for allowing resurgent holiday songs to appear annually.
Since then, Brenda’s rocked into the top 5 on multiple occasions – usually blocked from the Pop poll’s pinnacle by Mariah Carey‘s ‘All I Want for Christmas.’
That changed this week thanks to a recently released music video and streaming campaign from music lovers. Here are the numbers that powered Lee’s leap to #1 for the first time with ‘Rockin.’
Radio airplay: 20.7 million audience impressions
Streaming: 34.9 million U.S.-based streams
Sales: 3,000 digital downloads
Already one of the most successful female singers of all time (over 100 million records sold worldwide), Brenda can now boast having three Hot 100 toppers over her storied career: ‘Rockin’ and previous #1s ‘I Want to Be Wanted’ and ‘I’m Sorry.’
The history-making hop also makes Brenda, at 78-years-young, the oldest occupant of the Hot 100’s top spot.
“Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” shatters the record for the longest wait from a song’s release – 65 years – to it hitting No. 1 on the Hot 100. It surpasses the 25-year gap between the release of Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in 1994 and its rise to No. 1 in 2019. Lee’s single also breaks the record for longest climb to No. 1 on the Hot 100 from a song’s debut on the chart,” Billboard reports.
Keep it locked to That Grape Juice for more noteworthy chart stories as they roll out this week.