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Perhaps making the wait for a parking spot at the mall during the holidays not seem so long by comparison, Dean Martin’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” enters Billboard’s Adult Contemporary survey — nearly 72 years after the legendary entertainer recorded it.
The carol debuts on the ranking (dated Nov. 23) at No. 30.
The song was released at last on Oct. 14. Per a press release, it is Martin’s earliest known holiday recording, and his only recorded version of the classic carol, which Meredith Willson wrote in 1951. The performance is from a radio broadcast on Dec. 16, 1952, as part of NBC’s The Martin and Lewis Show that starred Martin and Jerry Lewis. (Their guest that week: Ginger Rogers.)
A new animated video for Martin’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” premiered Nov. 14.
Martin, who died on Christmas Day in 1995 at age 78, extends his span of hits on the Adult Contemporary chart (which began in the July 17, 1961, Billboard issue) to 60 years, four months and three weeks, dating to his iconic “Everybody Loves Somebody” in 1964. The song became his first of five No. 1s on the chart that he notched through 1968.
Only Nat King Cole narrowly boasts a longer span of Adult Contemporary entries: 60 years, five months and two weeks, from 1961 through 2022, when a new version of the revered late singer’s signature holiday hit “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),” with John Legend, reached No. 29.
Last holiday season, Martin also added to his chart history when “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” rose to a new No. 7 high on the all-genre, multimetric Billboard Hot 100. The song, from 1959, first hit the top 10 over the 2020-21 holidays, becoming his fourth song to reach the tier. “The King of Cool” posted his first three top 10s in 1964-65: “Everybody Loves Somebody” (No. 1, one week), “The Door Is Still Open to My Heart” (No. 6) and “I Will” (No. 10).
To date, two versions of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” have hit the Hot 100, by Perry Como and the Fontane Sisters with Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra (No. 12, 2020) and Michael Bublé (No. 19, 2023). The recordings have also both reached No. 8 on Billboard’s Holiday 100 chart, where, additionally, Johnny Mathis’ version has jingled to No. 15 and Bing Crosby’s, with Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra, has dashed to No. 18.
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