From ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ to ‘Burrito sabanero’: how to make a Christmas hit in 4 steps

Trying to dethrone Mariah Carey as the universal empress of Christmas hits is, at the moment, an impossible task. But with each passing year, more artists dare to create their pop carol or even their Christmas album, a recording phenomenon exploited by all types of singers, from the infamous Phil Spector to Jamie Callum, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, the Beach Boys, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bublé or our beloved Raphael, and that this 2024 has had a new resurgence in Spain with ‘El Burrito sabanero’ by the artist David Bisbal from Almeria, included in his album ‘Everything is possible at Christmas’. The list is long. Other great artists from the Spanish-speaking scene such as Niña Pastori, Mikel Erentxun, Iván Ferreiro or Thalía who have also been animated this season, but what are the keys to success in finding the perfect song for these dates? What is behind this phenomenon in the record market? First step Be clear about the business An artist can set out to create a pop carol out of pure Christmas spirit, but one cannot fall into naivety: the numbers rule, and in this sense, the current situation is very favorable. Since the industry recovered from the blow of illegal downloads and the streaming market stabilized, multiplying the possibilities of monetization, publishing material of these characteristics is the most profitable. The artist who releases a Christmas song or album knows that every year around this time, his fans will click again and again for almost a month to listen to it on streaming platforms, so in the long run, these songs enjoy of special longevity. Look, if not, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’: this Christmas new special editions of the album ‘Merry Christmas’ have been published for its 30th anniversary, and the song has once again occupied number one this week on Billboard’s Holiday100 chart and the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. In total it has sold 16 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. The Associated Press estimates the income it has generated from copyrights at $100 million, and ‘The Economist’ It is estimated that Carey personally earns $2.5 million a year from this song alone. Bisbal is light years away from achieving something similar with his ‘Burrito Sabanero’, but for now he is well on his way: in a month it has more than one and a half million clicks on Spotify and the video clip is close to three million views on YouTube. And we have not yet entered the weeks of greatest potential consumption. Second step A good composition, a good productionTo get on the musical Christmas train, not just anything is worth it. The song has to have very specific compositional goals, and the sound production must be in accordance with the intention of immediately engaging. “They are like summer songs, they have to have a very powerful chorus, but with bells, bells and choirs,” defines producer Paco Loco, who has just worked with Mikel Erentxun on his album ‘Navidad’. «The difference between Carey’s and Bisbal’s is that the first is an original composition, and the second is a popular song that everyone already had in their heads. The production of ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ is perfect, as demonstrated by its validity thirty years later. We’ll have to see if the same thing happens with ‘El Burrito Sabanero.'” How has Bisbal done it? It is told from Los Angeles by its producer Cheche Alara, who found out through ABC about the gigantic success of ‘Everything is possible at Christmas’. «You don’t know the joy you give me, being so far away I had not yet received news of the impact. He deserves it more than anyone because in addition to being an immense artist, he is a great guy,” says this winner of a Grammy and a Latin Grammy who had never recorded an album of these characteristics, “only loose Christmas songs because there are not many who dare.” with an entire album,” he says. «It was the first time I worked with him, and the experience has been incredible. I am very proud of what we have achieved together. As a producer, you are always conditioned by the artist you work with, because their limitations become yours. But in this case, David’s magic became my magic. By creating the Christmas atmospheres in these songs, I have been able to try things that I couldn’t try with 99% of the artists, because they don’t have his talent, his voice, or his desire to get involved in the production process. Our approach has been very eclectic, mixing popular with big-band and mariachi, a combination that does not usually occur in a Christmas album, and I think that has been one of the keys to success. He continues: “That and ‘El Burrito Sabanero’, of course, which is a special song that we have made sound traditional, and at the same time, that doesn’t sound old either now or in a few years. Time will tell, but I trust that it will still be heard in thirty years, as happens with ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ by Mariah Carey. Third step An overwhelming promoWe already know very well the promotional offensives that Mariah Carey makes every year so that we do not forget about it. And Bisbal has taken good note: although in the interview section he has stuck to television and radio, the singer has undertaken a marathon of publicity actions that culminated with his performance last Thursday on the balcony of the Casa Real de Correos de la Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where he sang the song that gives the title to his Christmas album (which also plays every day in the light show that is projected on the façade of the regional government headquarters), and by popular request of the public gathered at his feet, was also marked ‘The Burrito Sabanero’ a cappella. Before that, the man from Almeria has not stopped. He has starred in AENA’s Christmas campaign filming a very funny video clip: he appears walking through a Barajas terminal dressed in green, the color of the uniform of the company’s employees, so travelers mistake him for one of them and harass him with all kinds of questions about his flights, until he ends up singing to calm the staff’s nerves. He also joined TheGrefg, one of the most popular content creators in Spain, in a viral video, dressing up as Santa Claus and an elf and going out into the street to hold a contest in which they encouraged passers-by at Puerta del Sol to sing. carols. He even surprised his Universal Music Spain team by singing at the company party, a moment that was conveniently captured on video and has also gone viral.Fourth step Becoming a Christmas memeAll of the above come together in the final objective in this digital age: become a meme, in a good way. To get close to the triple Guinness Record that Mariah Carey has for the global and timeless popularity of her Christmas hit, you have to get your pop Christmas carol to circulate like wildfire through WhatsApp groups, to continuously appear on Twitter’s multimedia timelines, that it is danced on TikTok and that they make jokes with it in ‘La Revuelta’ (as happened a few days ago). Because that is how you get the free promo, the unleashed hum that embeds the song in the imagination collective, which turns it into a popular repertoire, into a classic.

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