The holiday music market is getting crowded. According to Rolling Stone, Olivia Rodrigo, Alanis Morissette, Thalia, and many others are releasing festive projects this season, and it's only early November.
Hilary Duff kicked things off on October 23 with her Holiday Things EP, a five-track project marking her return to Christmas music 24 years after Santa Claus Lane. She posted about the anniversary on Instagram, framing this as a full-circle moment rather than a one-off release.
The roster is diverse. Dustin Kensrue from Thrice released his second holiday album the same day as Duff. Thalia expanded her 2024 album Navidad Melancólica with new Latin pop holiday tracks including "Regalo Perfecto." This is not just Anglo pop stars mining nostalgia, it's a global slate of artists recognizing the Christmas market remains underexploited.
The streaming era has changed how artists approach evergreen content. Holiday music streams reliably every December, generating steady revenue long after release week. A well-executed Christmas EP or album becomes a catalog asset that pays dividends for years. For artists like Duff and Kensrue who built fanbases in the 2000s-2010s, holiday releases tap into nostalgia with listeners now in their 30s and 40s, people with disposable income and families to buy for.
The flood of releases also reflects a post-Taylor Swift industry mindset: albums and EPs as cultural moments. Even a five-track holiday project gets press coverage, Instagram announcements, and fan engagement. Streamers get fresh content to promote, artists maintain visibility heading into the new year, and fans have new material to explore.
For diaspora communities, this shift matters. Thalia's Latin-holiday fusion and multilingual release strategy show that streaming platforms no longer gatekeep by geography. A holiday album can reach listeners across Anglophone, Latinx, and international markets at once.
Whether this becomes standard practice or a temporary surge remains unclear. Mariah Carey's 30-year hold on December playlists, though, just got considerably less exclusive.
