Today, I take a look at how Brenda Lee finally unseated Mariah Carey at the top of the Billboard Christmastime charts.
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.
Last year, I noted that Mariah Carey’s recent chart dominance with her 1994 Christmas hit, “All I Want For Christmas is You” was in danger of possibly being unseated by another Christmas classic, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”, which celebrated its 65th anniversary this year.
And it has finally happened, with Brenda Lee finally hitting the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” giving Lee her third #1 hit.
As I noted last year, the song’s popularity on TIkTok (where fans will often jokingly discuss whether the song uses profanity at one point)
On the song’s 65th anniversary, Lee released a new music video the song…
and a new EP, A Rockin’ Christmas With Brenda Lee, and perhaps that extra attention gave her the push to take the top spot from Carey.
This is still very early in the month, though, so Carey could easily return to #1 later this month. It’s still a very notable achievement for the 78-year-old singing star (turning 79 next week).
Congrats, Brenda Lee!
If anyone else has an interesting pop culture bit that you’d like me to write about, drop me a line at brian@popculturereferences.com!
