As holiday hits decorate the Billboard Hot 100’s entire top 10, and top 16, spots for the first time, another seasonal song, among others, makes a notable jolly jaunt: Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s “Merry Christmas” jingles four places to No. 38, marking its first week in the chart’s top 40 – and John’s milestone 60th top 40 hit and Sheeran’s likewise landmark 25th.
The team-up, which Sheeran and John co-wrote, was released in 2021 and first peaked at No. 42 a year later.
In the Dec. 20-26 tracking week, the song drew 20.2 million official streams (up 38%) and 2.8 million in radio airplay audience (up 25%) and sold 2,000 (up 59%) in the United States, according to data tracker Luminate.
Notably, John ties Beyoncé for the ninth-most top 40 Hot 100 hits, dating to the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, start.
Most Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 Hits:
206, Drake
165, Taylor Swift
89, Lil Wayne
81, Elvis Presley (whose career predates the Hot 100’s inception)
78, Kanye West
74, Nicki Minaj
72, Future
63, Eminem
60, Beyoncé
60, Elton John
57, Kendrick Lamar
55, Travis Scott
John first reached the Hot 100’s top 40 on the chart dated Dec. 19, 1970, when “Your Song” jumped 49-38. He appeared in the top 40 every year consecutively through 1999 – linking a record 30-year streak in the tier – and returned with his 58th and 59th entries in 2021 and 2022, respectively: “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” with Dua Lipa (No. 7 peak), and “Hold Me Closer,” with Britney Spears (No. 6).
(From 1972 through 1986, John charted 36 consecutive Hot 100 hits in the top 40. The run included 20 top 10s, of 29 in his career, and seven No. 1s, of his nine total.)
Plus, John extends the longest span of top 40 Hot 100 appearances for a soloist excluding holiday fare to 54 years and two weeks. Among all acts and backing out seasonal songs, The Beatles boast the longest span: 59 years, nine months and three weeks, from “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in 1964 through “Now and Then” in 2023.
Sheeran first placed in the Hot 100’s top 40 with “The A Team” on the chart dated Nov. 10, 2012, and had most recently ranked in the region with “Eyes Closed” in July 2023.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric reflecting purchases of physical singles and digital tracks from full-service digital music retailers; digital singles sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from chart calculations. All charts (dated Jan. 4, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (Dec. 31). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
