Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Paste Magazine acquires feminist media platform Jezebel after it was briefly shut down, Nikki Haley scores an endorsement from Charles Koch, and Mariah Carey and Brenda Lee are back at the top of the charts, officially kicking off the Christmas season. Have a peaceful Wednesday!
- Do you hear what I hear? It’s officially the most wonderful time of the year, when you can hear those sleigh bells jingling, see piles of toys in every store, and count on Mariah Carey and Brenda Lee’s Christmas classics to dominate the airwaves.
Though Carey’s 1994 song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Lee’s 1958 recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” have long been inescapable mainstays of holiday airplay, they only began topping the Billboard Hot 100 four years ago, decades after either was released. That’s thanks to a series of rule changes Billboard made to better reflect the streaming era. Those changes have kicked off something of a new holiday tradition, with the legendary artists and their festive jingles at the center, vying for the top spot each year.
