Mariah Carey is accustomed to dramatic streaming surges. They usually happen when temperatures drop, Christmas decorations appear and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” begins its annual climb back toward the top of the charts.
This time, it is September.
Carey’s catalog has quietly begun posting unusually strong numbers on Spotify, with daily streams increasing for several consecutive days and some older recordings reaching milestones that would be unusual even during a promotional cycle.
According to figures published by fan-run tracking account Mariah Carey Spotify, Carey received approximately 4.999 million Spotify streams on Sept. 9. That increased to 5.110 million on Sept. 10 and 5.263 million on Sept. 11 — an increase of roughly 5.3 percent in two days.
The account estimates Carey has accumulated approximately 1.171 billion Spotify streams during 2026 so far.
But the overall number may not be the most interesting part.
Some of the growth is appearing in places where there is no immediately obvious reason for it to be happening.
A 2009 collaboration just had its biggest day ever
“My Love,” a 2009 single by The-Dream featuring Carey, recorded approximately 13,950 Spotify streams on Friday — its largest single streaming day to date, according to tracking data.
The song was released during the rollout of The-Dream’s second studio album, Love vs. Money. It has never occupied the same place in Carey's catalog as major hits like “We Belong Together,” “Fantasy” or “Obsessed.”
Seventeen years later, however, it just set a new daily streaming record.
That distinction matters.
A sudden increase for one well-known Carey song could easily be explained by a viral video, prominent playlist placement or renewed attention on social media. A simultaneous increase reaching relatively obscure parts of an artist's catalog suggests something broader may be happening.
“My Love” is not alone.
‘It’s a Wrap’ is surging — again
“It’s a Wrap,” originally released on Carey's 2009 album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, is experiencing another notable increase in Spotify activity.
The song recorded its largest streaming day since August 2023 earlier this week, according to tracking data.
Unlike “My Love,” there is already precedent for “It’s a Wrap” suddenly becoming a streaming hit.
More than a decade after its release, the album track went viral on TikTok in early 2023. Carey subsequently released an It’s a Wrap EP containing several versions of the song, including a sped-up version that had become popular on the platform.
That resurgence transformed what had been a comparatively obscure album cut into one of the most recognizable songs from Memoirs among a new generation of listeners.
What is unusual now is the timing.
More than three years have passed since that initial viral moment, yet the song has suddenly reached its strongest daily performance since the months immediately following that resurgence.
And it is doing so while Carey's broader catalog is also climbing.
This isn't the Christmas effect
That distinction is particularly important when examining Carey’s streaming numbers.
Every year, Carey's catalog undergoes one of the music industry's most predictable seasonal transformations. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” generates enormous streaming volume beginning in November, with the effect inevitably raising her overall daily numbers.
September offers no such explanation.
The current increase is occurring weeks before the period in which Carey's Christmas catalog typically begins dominating her streaming totals.
It also does not appear, at least from the available numbers alone, to be concentrated entirely around one obvious blockbuster recording.
Instead, a 2009 album track is recording its best performance in three years while a separate 2009 collaboration is setting an all-time daily record.
That makes the movement considerably harder to dismiss as the performance of a single viral song.
So, what is happening?
There is not yet enough public data to attribute the increase to one source.
Algorithmic recommendations can create significant secondary effects on streaming services. A listener discovering one Carey song may subsequently be served another through autoplay, personalized playlists, artist radio or Spotify's recommendation systems.
Short-form video can produce similar results. A recording does not necessarily need to become a massive, identifiable TikTok trend before increased use across TikTok, Instagram Reels and other platforms begins translating into streams.
There is also the possibility of a broader catalog effect: listeners arriving for one song and remaining for others.
That phenomenon would help explain why an unexpected recording such as “My Love” could rise alongside a song with an established viral history such as “It’s a Wrap.”
For now, however, any single explanation would be speculation.
The numbers themselves tell the more interesting story.
Carey's daily Spotify audience is increasing. One previously viral catalog song is experiencing its strongest activity since 2023. A 17-year-old collaboration has just recorded its biggest streaming day ever.
And all of it is happening in September.
For an artist whose annual streaming explosion has become practically synonymous with Christmas, the most interesting thing about Mariah Carey's latest surge may be that Christmas has nothing to do with it.