Posted September 12, 20204 yr Seeing as it’s one of the few Christmas songs to actually go #1 on the charts, do we think it’ll become a classic, just like Santa Tell Me and Cozy Little Christmas probably will?
September 17, 20204 yr No, it was a gimmick song that solely got to that position due to chart rules making older classics half as effective and Amazon using their playlists weighted in her favour to play her more often than anyone else in comparison. Out of all 9 of Amazon’s Christmas playlists last year, River was in 100% of them. You had a 66% chance of hearing River as one of the first 5 songs and 100% chance of hearing it by track 11 in all of them. So essentially whenever someone asked Alexa to play a Christmas song, they were practically guaranteed to bump her to the top.
September 17, 20204 yr but you can argue the same about all the other xmas songs, no one goes to Spotify and types Ariana Grande Santa Tell Me it that is a hit every year is cos of supere high placing in all Xmas playlists why Ariana is a hit? cos of the playlists, why Little Mix Xmas song flopped? cos it wasn't on any. Pure and simple. River is in the same situation as anyone else. If it's on the key xmas playlists, it will be a hit again. If it's not, it won't.
September 17, 20204 yr Author Katy’s ‘Cozy Little Christmas’ had a stronger year in its 2nd year, so it will be interesting to see how this does. Top 40 is a given I’d say?
September 17, 20204 yr Cozy has the benefit of being an original song. I'm not really sure if River will get anywhere near to what Cozy did in its second year. I wouldn't be against it doing well again but it's going to need heavy playlist support.
September 17, 20204 yr but you can argue the same about all the other xmas songs, no one goes to Spotify and types Ariana Grande Santa Tell Me it that is a hit every year is cos of supere high placing in all Xmas playlists why Ariana is a hit? cos of the playlists, why Little Mix Xmas song flopped? cos it wasn't on any. Pure and simple. River is in the same situation as anyone else. If it's on the key xmas playlists, it will be a hit again. If it's not, it won't. The difference is that Santa Tell Me is available on every platform; their playlists and every digital store for sale and has naturally earned its slow burn success and placement over these 6 years through additional nostalgia and it being more accepted in the Christmas music pantheon and now has almost 200 million YouTube views in that time for its video along (almost 100 million additional views on other lyric videos on the platform, too). River, despite only being available to listen and view for free on YouTube as an option globally has only managed 2.5 million views in 9 months. Not great when it’s either that, get an Amazon Music streaming subscription or buy it (a paltry 153 sales happened the week it got #1). It wasn’t chosen to get to number one by the public, being excluded from every other digital store and music streaming platform and will forever live as a prime example of corporations influencing the chart with blatant and calculated position manipulation. You’d think if the British population cared an iota about the song it would’ve given lift to the original version of one of its other covers, as that was available for streaming and buying on every platform but nope. Edited September 17, 20204 yr by Frawdree
September 17, 20204 yr It will be available on other platforms this year wont it? I really hope it can continue to chart in years to come, I love it and cant wait to start listening to it again closer to the Christmas period!
September 17, 20204 yr classic? probably not. will it go top 40 this year? I think so given Amazon are unlikely to drop it completely from their playlists.
September 17, 20204 yr Dont think it will be a CLASSIC but i think it will get some sort of boost each Christmas
September 19, 20204 yr hahaha totally here for it I guess this year Amazon will have a new Xmas exclusive so Alexa won't favour River that much but on the other side it will be available elsewhere so hopefully that will compensate Edited September 19, 20204 yr by Bjork
September 19, 20204 yr Author Amazon seeing River go #1 last year will surely encourage them to push it again this year. They’d definitely want one of their exclusives become a classic!
September 19, 20204 yr Except it’d need to be pushed twice as hard as it’d now be old enough to be affected by the same chart rules that penalised Mariah and Wham. I doubt the nation is going to stream it as much as that’d need to push it to the top unless Amazon have 20 Christmas playlists with it on all of them.
September 19, 20204 yr Author It’s not on permanent ACR though? It’ll soon be on SCR come November/early Dec
September 19, 20204 yr Amazon will almost definitely have a new exclusive to push this year. They'll surely support River still but it won't be to the same extent at all. They still supported Katy's Cozy Little Christmas last year but it wasn't an Amazon Exclusive at that point so it wasn't their main focus.
September 19, 20204 yr Maybe it'll continue to be a part of the landscape of Christmas songs that go Top 40 in the UK due to Alexa's impact (assuming they continue to push it, it'll be interesting to see whether they do). I feel like it's unlikely that it'll become a classic in its own right, due to being a cover version and the fact it didn't have much natural popularity.... barely anyone bought it and its YouTube views are relatively low.
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