But how much are the singers now raking in every year because of royalties? We have all the juicy info you need…
How much does Mariah Carey make from her Christmas hit?
Pop royalty Mariah Carey's 1994 smash hit All I Want for Christmas is You is regularly voted to be one of the best Christmas songs of all time.
But how much does the song bring in for the already very rich American every year?
According to the Daily Mail, she makes a whopping £376,000 a year in music royalties.
That'll probably sort her children's pocket money out for the year.
How much does Last Christmas make?
Wham!'s Last Christmas is also another crimbo favourite amongst families everywhere.
It was the most played Christmas song on UK radio between 2012 and 2016, despite it never making it to number 1 in the charts.
The BBC estimated that the song's yearly revenue is around £470,000, due to a huge boost in sales last year.
What are music royalties?
Music royalties are payments which go to the recording artists, songwriters, composers and other copyright holders of a song.
Royalties are the primary form of payment for artists and copyright holders when they release music, and the shares of who gets how much is usually defined in the contract.
The artist(s) typically get the largest shares, but it can vary from track to track.
There are different kinds of royalties generated, all to do with different licensing and usage of the intellectual property (the song).
These can include:
- Mechanical – these royalties are generating from physical or digital reproduction or distribution of copyrighted work and covers all forms, from vinyl and casette, to digital downloads and streams on Apple Music and Spotify.
- Public performance – when a song is played, streamed or performed in public. This includes on TV, radio, in bars or clubs, live concert and anywhere else it's played in public.
- Synchronisation – this covers when music is synced with other visual media. A Sync license allows the right to use music in films, television programmes, adverts, video games, and so on.
- Print music – royalties from print are the rarest nowadays, and it covers when a song is turned into sheet music and is distributed. This is measured via the amount of copies made of the printed piece.
How much does The Fairytale of New York make a year?
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's 1987 song The Fairytale of New York was named as the most played Christmas song on UK radio between 2012 and 2016.
We all love singing along to the Christmas smash hit, and we bet that its writers, Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan do too.
They make approximately £400,000 a year thanks to the song, according to the Daily Mail in 2016.
Both the writers have been resistant in suggesting a figure for the dosh the song brings in.
What about our other Christmas hits?
The Daily Mail released some of their guesstimations for a load of our favourite songs.
White Christmas by Bing Crosby rakes in £328,000, while Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody brings in a gigantic £500,000 a year.
Jona Lewie, the man behind Stop the Calvary brings in £120,000 a year, and has admitted he has "never had to get a proper job" since the success of the 1980 hit.
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