(November 25, 2025) – A familiar chart battle is brewing this holiday season—one we’ve witnessed before, yet never with stakes quite this high.
Taylor Swift, of course, continues her Hot 100 reign with the No. 1 smash “The Fate of Ophelia.” But looming like a fast moving winter glacier is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which is rapidly completing its annual thaw and climbing the chart as December approaches (it currently sits at No. 8). Based on current projections, the two titans are headed for a collision at the top of the Hot 100 dated December 13.
If Carey’s modern-day standard replaces “Ophelia” at No. 1, it would mark the fifth time the two superstars have traded places at the top. Only two other artist pairings in the chart’s 67-year history have done that—The Beatles and The Supremes in the 1960s, and Katy Perry and Rihanna between 2008 and 2011.
In the first case, the Fab Four and Motown’s premiere girl group passed the No. 1 baton five times, beginning with “Come See About Me” surrendering to “I Feel Fine” in December 1964 (and the two tunes reversing roles three weeks later) and ending when “Hey Jude” yielded to “Love Child” nearly four years later. In between were No. 1 exchanges between the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” and the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and later the girls’ “Love is Here and Now You’re Gone” and the guys’ “Penny Lane.”
That remarkable five-time exchange stood alone for more than four decades—until Katy and Rihanna started leap-frogging each other between 2008 and 2011 with hits like “I Kissed a Girl,” “Disturbia,” “California Gurls,” “S&M,” “Teenage Dream,” Love the Way You Lie,” and “E.T. (Extraterrestrial).”
Which brings us to today—where Swift and Carey now stand on the verge of joining that rarefied club.
The twist? Unlike those earlier examples, Taylor has had to contend with the same song every time. In December 2020, her “Willow” briefly interrupted “Christmas” before Carey reclaimed No. 1 a week later. Two years later, “Anti-Hero” handed the throne back to “Christmas,” only to take it again four weeks later.
If “All I Want for Christmas Is You” dethrones “Ophelia,” it would become the first song in Hot 100 history to replace—or be replaced by—three different No. 1 singles from the same artist. A sixth swap, should Swift reclaim No. 1 after the holidays, would give the pair sole possession of the all-time record.
Of course, none of this is a foregone conclusion. Gaining steam at an even faster clip than Mariah’s “Christmas” is Brenda Lee’s fellow holiday perennial, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” That song could easily pull a surprise return to No. 1 before Mariah’s classic gets there, rendering all of this speculation moot.
Meanwhile, Mariah has an even larger milestone looming: her next week at No. 1–regardless of which song it displaces—would tie “Christmas” with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” for the all-time record of 19 weeks at the summit. Any time beyond that would crown Carey the undisputed longevity queen of the Hot 100, a title she once held for more than 20 years with her 1995 Boyz II Men duet “One Sweet Day” and its then-record 16 weeks at the top.
But even without those broader implications, the Carey-Swift rivalry remains one of the most fascinating recurring storylines of the streaming era, particularly around the holidays: a seasonal juggernaut versus the most dominant album-era artist of the moment, locked in a friendly, if unwitting seesaw of cultural and commercial power.
It’s a historic battle of chart titans that may soon see its fifth and sixth chapters written, and DJROBBLOG will be certainly watching as this holiday season unfolds.
Stay tuned!
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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