Half of the Billboard 200’s Top 10 Are Holiday Albums

January 2, 2024 E Jazz Reporter

Artistes

Pentatonix gets its 11th top 10 with The Greatest Christmas Hits, while Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song and A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector hit new peaks.

Pentatonix

Vijat Mohindra

It’s a merry and bright top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated Jan. 6, 2024, as half of the region is populated by holiday titles. The top 10 last hosted five seasonal albums on the Jan. 7, 2023, ranking.

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The Jan. 6, 2024, chart reflects the tracking week of Dec. 22-28, 2023.

Leading the holiday pack is Michael Bublé’s chart-topping Christmas, which climbs 4-2 with 78,000 equivalent album units earned (up 11%), according to Luminate. It’s the highest rank for the title in two years, since it spent two weeks in a row at No. 2 on the Jan. 1-8, 2022-dated charts. Christmas was released in 2011 and spent five consecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2011-12.

Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song hits a new peak, rising 8-4 with 64,000 units (up 15%). The album previously peaked at No. 5 a year ago, on the Jan. 7, 2023, chart. The set includes Cole’s classic title track, along with Billboard Holiday 100-charting favorites including “Deck the Halls,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World” and “Caroling, Caroling.”

The classic multi-artist holiday album A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector jumps 14-7 — a new peak — with 56,000 equivalent album units earned (up 17%). The album, first released in 1963, previously peaked at No. 8 a year ago (on the Jan. 7, 2023, chart). It first reached the top 10 on the Jan. 8, 2022, chart, when it stepped 11-10. The album, produced by Spector, boasts familiar favorites heard during the holiday season that were initially recorded for the project. Among them are Holiday 100-charting hits including The Ronettes’ “Sleigh Ride” and Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and “Winter Wonderland.”

Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas jingles 10-8 with 56,000 equivalent album units (up 7%). The album was released in 1994 and peaked at No. 3 that December. The set houses Carey’s classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which has topped the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart in each of the last five holiday seasons.

Rounding out the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 is Pentatonix’s The Greatest Christmas Hits, which vaults 60-10, a new peak, with 51,000 equivalent album units earned (up 147%). The 31-song set is the vocal group’s latest release, and it includes 23 earlier-released holiday favorites, along with eight new recordings.

The Greatest Christmas Hits marks Pentatonix’s 11th top 10-charting set, and its first since its last compilation, 2019’s The Best of Pentatonix Christmas, peaked at No. 7 on the Dec. 28, 2019, chart.

Here’s a recap of Pentatonix’s 11 top 10-charting albums on the Billboard 200, six of which are holiday sets: PTXmas (No. 7, 2013), PTX: Vol. II (No. 10, 2013), PTX: Vol. III (No. 5, 2014), That’s Christmas to Me (No. 2, 2014), Pentatonix (No. 1, 2015), A Pentatonix Christmas (No. 1 for two weeks, 2017), PTX Vol. IV: Classics (No. 4), PTX Presents: Top Pop, Vol. 1 (No. 10, 2018), Christmas Is Here! (No. 7, 2018), The Best of Pentatonix Christmas (No. 7, 2019) and The Greatest Christmas Hits (No. 10, 2024).

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Jan. 6, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Jan. 3, one day later than normal due to the New Year’s Day holiday on Jan. 1. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

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