Mariah Carey, commonly referred to as the “Queen of Christmas” for her dominance of the Christmas song market for the past few decades, owes much of that success to her massive 1994 holiday hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You”.
The song has long held the number one spot on the holiday song charts, so for Jason Kelce to somehow surpass Mariah Carey with his own Christmas anthem is nothing short of miraculous.
So just how did he do it?
Well, it should come as no surprise that Kelce had a secret weapon. He confessed as much on last week’s episode of his New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce podcast.
Just as Kelce had Jalen Hurts helping propel him to new heights with the Eagles his last few seasons, in the recording booth he had musical legend Stevie Nicks to thank for the song’s stellar numbers. Taylor Swift, a friend of Stevie Nicks, had a hand in recruiting her fellow pop icon to team up for a duet with Jason Kelce for their new version of Maybe This Christmas.
“It was incredible to work with Stevie Nicks. I mean, obviously, I’m still in awe of the fact that that actually happened,” Kelce admitted on the podcast.
He continued, “There’s no percent chance that any song that I am in should be streaming No. 1 on any service, in any genre.” But that’s the power of having the front woman for Fleetwood Mac in the recording studio with you.
Kelce joked in regards to passing Mariah Carey for the top spot on the holiday song list, “You know, I’ve fought my whole life to be the queen of Christmas, and the fact that we’re finally there is just really special.”
He also confessed the timing of the surprise musical accomplishment may have been fortuitous. Kelce, who releases a charity Christmas album every year with his Eagles faux-music group The Philly Specials, released Maybe This Christmas as the first single from this year’s album on November 8th.
“I know we caught it in early November. We’ll see if it holds up throughout the rest of Christmas,” Kelce explained. “We kind of caught it on the Christmas downslide, like, not too many people are listening to Christmas music so we jumped up in there.”
The whole album, entitled A Philly Special Christmas Party, drops on November 29.
So call it a bit of luck, the Stevie Nicks effect, or just Jason Kelce’s star continuing to rise, but whatever the cause, there’s definitely something (Philly) special in the airwaves this holiday season.
