Pentatonix says they “Lucked Out” with their hit Christmas album

(NEW YORK) — Even though it came out last year, That’s Christmas to Me by the a capella singing quintet Pentatonix continues to be one of 2015’s most popular holiday albums.  In fact, it’s currently #1 on Billboard’s annual holiday chart, and “Joy to the World,” a song from the new expanded version of the album, is getting plenty of airplay. 

Why are the group’s takes on classic Christmas tunes so popular?  According to Pentatonix, all it takes is good promotion…and some luck.

“It was one of our first big releases on a major label, so we obviously had them to help promote it and stuff,” group member Scott Hoying tells ABC Radio. “And then we also had a successful video on YouTube, ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ and it went really viral and, I think that kind of got the album out there.”

“And then, everyone was just looking for a Christmas album that year,” he added. “We lucked out.”

They did indeed: the album went on to become one of the best-selling albums of 2014. But Pentatonix member Avi Kaplan believes the album continues to sell so well, not because of luck, but because a lot of thought went into it.

“When we were putting all the tracks together and arranging everything, we really had in mind that we wanted it to be the soundtrack to people’s Christmases, you know?” he tells ABC Radio. “We just kind of imagined, well, the day starts with presents and all these different things…we wanted to imagine each song during a certain time during the Christmas day. And so I feel like that kind of helped out as well.”  

The continuing success of That’s Christmas to Me is a great way for Pentatonix to finish off their 2015, which they started with a Grammy win. Then, their first album of all-original material debuted at #1.  They just received another Grammy nod, and they’ll ring in 2016 on ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

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