Christmas Song or Winter Song? How to Decide Before the Deadline

It is October 29, and the schedule for a holiday release is already tight. Hypebot's guide to holiday music says to have the mix and master done by late October and the music delivered to streaming platforms by mid-November. If you are still choosing a song, ask one question before any other: does your seasonal song need to be a Christmas song at all?

This guide compares a Christmas song with a winter song. It will not say one always wins. It shows what the data says, where the data stops and how to decide this week. For the schedule itself, see our Christmas single timeline.

The Christmas window is short

ReverbNation's Kevin Breuner, quoted in the Hypebot guide, describes the shape of holiday listening. He says it "begins mid-November," that "things accelerate by Thanksgiving," that "everything peaks on Christmas Eve" and that "on Christmas Day, it drops considerably." Then comes the line that matters for planning: "By New Year's, it's non-existent."

The same guide says the music industry "slows significantly during the last month of the year." RouteNote, citing Spotify data, reports that festive music essentially takes over by the second week of December. A Christmas song gets a big stage for a short time, and it shares that stage with the standards.

None of this is a case against Christmas songs. The Hypebot guide also says holiday music can build traction slowly, and Breuner says people come back to it every year. The point is to know what you are choosing.

What the data says about winter listening

A 2019 study in Nature Human Behaviour analyzed 765 million Spotify plays from 2016, streamed by 1 million people in 51 countries. The researchers, from Cornell University and Spotify, rated tracks from highly relaxing (acoustic, instrumental, ambient, slow or flat in tempo) to highly energetic (strong beat, danceable, loud, bouncy).

Their seasonal finding is simple. Relaxing music was preferred in the cold seasons, and highly arousing music in the warmer ones. Day length was the best predictor, and the seasonal swing shrank near the equator.

Read that with care. The study is observational, covers one year and one platform, and did not measure mood directly. It does not show that a calm release will beat a bright one. It does suggest that the mood of the cold months is wider than sleigh bells. Stillness, warmth and being indoors are part of it too.

What makes a winter song

A winter song is not a Christmas song with the holiday taken out. It is about what the season feels like: long nights, frost on a window, being warm inside while it is cold outside, missing someone, light returning.

A useful test is to ask whether the song still makes sense on January 15, or on a gray Sunday in February. If a lyric depends on Santa, sleigh bells or December 25, it belongs to the holiday. If it works on those other days, it is a winter song.

On sound, the study's description of relaxing music, which is acoustic, ambient and slower, is a reasonable place to begin. A hook still matters. Calm does not have to mean sleepy.

How to choose between them

Here is a rule of thumb. It is a judgment call, not a law.

• Choose a Christmas song if you want to be on holiday playlists, your fans expect something festive and you can meet the mid-November platform date.
• Choose a winter song if you want a mood that fits the whole cold season, your audience includes people who do not celebrate Christmas, or you have missed the holiday timeline.
• Choose neither if the song is not seasonal at all. SubmitHub's release-timing guide, which cites no data, says non-seasonal releases are usually better off waiting until January, when competition is lower but listener engagement can be too.

Deadlines for each

A Christmas release has the tighter calendar. Hypebot's guide suggests signing up with a distributor by early November and delivering to platforms by mid-November at the latest. Spotify says, "Deliver your music at least 7 days before release so our editors have time to listen." Mid-November is a little over two weeks away.

A winter song has more room, but not unlimited room. December may be the hardest month for attention. Hypebot says the industry slows then, and SubmitHub says most Spotify editors go on holiday around December, though it offers that as its own observation, not data. The same guide says the second half of November through late December is "largely dominated by Christmas, winter, and holiday music," which suggests a winter song can find a place on those playlists, or wait for January.

The full distributor lead times are in our guide to an exclusive license for a holiday single.

Seasons are local

One more thing for a global audience. December is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Cornell study found that seasonal swings shrink near the equator. A song about frost may not speak to a listener in Sydney or Singapore in December.

If your fans are spread around the world, lean on feelings that travel, such as missing someone, coming home or hoping for the year ahead, and use winter images lightly.

Finding a winter song on Starchild

Describe the mood, not the holiday: "quiet song about a long winter night and missing someone, warm and hopeful at the end." The search understands descriptions, titles, writer names and a line of lyrics. You can also browse the mood pages.

Listen to each candidate in different styles and voices before you license it. A song that sounds like a holiday record in one style can sound like a plain winter song in another. Slow the tempo or change the key while it plays to find the version that fits your voice.

If you want the song to be yours alone for the season, exclusive licenses take a song off the market for the term (3, 6 or 12 months), and the holder can renew. Check the exact term dates against the weeks you are aiming at before you buy.

What to do this week

• Decide today whether you need a Christmas song or a winter song.
• Write the mood in two words and search with them.
• Pick three candidates and play each one in the key you would sing it.
• Choose by Sunday, so you have the working days you need before mid-November.
• Write down your release date, then count back from it.

Sources

• Hypebot: How to Release Holiday Music Successfully
• RouteNote: When Do People Start Listening to Christmas Music?
• Cornell Chronicle: Streaming chill vibes? Spotify data says the season is the reason
• SubmitHub: What are the best months to release music? A release guide for artists
• Spotify for Artists Support: Pitching music and videos to Spotify playlist editors