Nate Sloan talks Mariah Carey’s Christmas hit with NBC News

Nate Sloan, a Thornton Musicology program faculty member, was recently quoted in a NBC News article about the popularity of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

Sloan said, “Charts are dominated by the newest hit single, and the appetite for new music is the drive for climbing the charts — the only exception to that is Christmas. It has very much to do with the emotional support we draw from this holiday.”

He went on to add that as people listen to the song more, they start to associate it with “emotional psychological reactions” and “it becomes a sonic marker of being around family and warmth and time off.”

Sloan is a musicologist and performer who researches jazz, Tin Pan Alley and popular music. He is also the co-host of Vox Media’s award-winning podcast Switched on Pop, which discusses the making and meaning of some of the biggest pop songs.