Mariah Carey's 'Oh Santa!' Tops Adult Contemporary

Mariah Carey's new holiday track "Oh Santa!" dashes all the way from No. 12 to No. 1 in just its second week on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, to be refreshed on Billboard.com Thursday (Dec. 9).

The coronation is the quickest by any title since the survey adopted Nielsen BDS-monitored radio airplay data in 1993. In that span, eight previous songs soared to the summit in as little as three chart weeks. (Seven of those songs were holiday-themed, as a majority of adult contemporary stations segue to yuletide fare each holiday season).

"Oh Santa!" is the lead single from Carey's second holiday album, "Merry Christmas II You," which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 dated Nov. 20 and has sold 165,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Carey's prequel holiday set, 1994's "Merry Christmas," has totaled U.S. sales of 5.1 million. That collection's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" peaked at No. 6 on the Jan. 7, 1995, Adult Contemporary chart and has sold 1.6 million downloads. The cut additionally crowns Billboard's tally of the 100 top-selling and most-played holiday songs last year.

"Oh Santa!" had previously topped Billboard's Holiday Digital Songs list, where it debuted at No. 1 the week of Oct. 30.

The new carol is Carey's seventh Adult Contemporary chart-topper and first in more than 14 years. She reigned with her debut single "Vision of Love" and follow-up "Love Takes Time" in 1990 and again ruled with "I Don't Wanna Cry" (1991), "Can't Let Go," "I'll Be There" (1992) and "One Sweet Day," with Boyz II Men (1995-96).

Carey ends the longest gap between Adult Contemporary No. 1s since the Eagles waited 20 years between the commands of "Best of My Love" (Dec. 14, 1974) and "Love Will Keep Us Alive" (Dec. 17, 1994).