Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," written by Johnny Marks and recorded by 13-year-old Brenda Lee in 1958, became one of the first Christmas songs to successfully incorporate rock and roll's emerging rhythm and energy into the traditionally more sedate genre of holiday music. Marks, who had already written "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and would go on to become one of the most prolific Christmas songwriters of the 20th century, built his publishing career substantially around holiday material, an unusually specialized commercial niche within the broader music industry. The song's initial commercial performance upon release was relatively modest, and its status as a genuine holiday standard grew gradually over subsequent decades of radio replay, eventually becoming one of the most streamed Christmas songs of the digital era despite its more than 60-year-old original recording. Its combination of its pioneering rock-and-roll-infused sound and its eventual long-delayed rise to genuine standard status has made "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" one of the most distinctive and enduring Christmas songs of the mid-20th century.
VS
All I Want for Christmas Is You
"All I Want for Christmas Is You," written and recorded by Mariah Carey with co-writer Walter Afanasieff and released in 1994, became the most successful and commercially significant Christmas song of the modern pop era, eventually reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2019, 25 years after its original release. Recorded at Right Track Recording studio in New York City, the song combined Carey's vocal range with a deliberately vintage, 1960s girl-group-inspired production style, giving it a nostalgic sonic quality despite being written and recorded decades after that era's peak. The song's enormous and continuing annual streaming and sales resurgence every holiday season, decades after its release, has made it one of the most consistently lucrative recordings in modern music, generating an estimated multi-million-dollar royalty windfall for Carey and her co-writer every year. Its combination of its unprecedented modern commercial success and its status as the definitive contemporary pop Christmas song has made "All I Want for Christmas Is You" the most significant Christmas song written in the last half-century.
Next battle
Full comparison
About Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
About All I Want for Christmas Is You
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
