At Least It Wasn't Bloody Mariah
Can I share a secret with you?
Nobody can actually predict the charts, at least not with any degree of certainty or expertise. Yet at Christmas that seems to be the business we are all in, attempting to second guess what might happen weeks in advance. Just to get that betting edge and the kudos of having predicted Christmas No.1.
To make predictions though you have to make assumptions and it was indeed assumptions which led most of the speculation as to just what was likely to transpire this week.
Assumption 1 was that something would pop up to fill the Ladbaby charity vacuum. This wasn't totally far-fetched, there have been some extraordinary Christmas twists in the past when circumstances conspired to create a bandwagon which had unstoppable momentum. Who can forget 2012 when the lead of X Factor winner James Arthur was wiped out by the Hillsbrough report becoming topical and the Justice Collective charity cover of He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother storming to an impassable lead. I complained the song itself was rubbish and had angry people in my inbox for a week, but that's another story. Then there was 2015, Justin Bieber wrecking both his own chances and a great many bets by being prompted to post that he'd like to see the Lewisham And Greenwich NHS Choir overtake him at the top of the charts. The rest being history.
Even the first Ladbaby No.1 hit in 2018 was a late bloomer, a release with little real momentum behind it until online media began mentioning it in dispatches. And suddenly it was the charity cause du jour, unleashing a five year reign of festive terror.
So the door was open for something similar to happen this year. But the only thing that resembled a potential bandwagon was the Creator Universe cover of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, a creation of Ladbaby producer Jamie Sellers who hit on the bright idea of inviting a collective of 30 different online influencers to participate in a charity song, the presumption being that the collective following of all would be more than enough to propel the track up the charts. But Tik Tok subscribers don't actually buy music, and after a Top 10 midweek debut the single collapsed and winds up a miserable No.29.
Assumption 2 was that there would be a poignant twist in the usual lineup of most streamed Christmas songs. As noted three weeks ago, the sad death of Shane MacGowan of The Pogues meant that Fairytale Of New York was a sentimental choice to top the Christmas chart, and indeed the charts themselves for the very first time. It was even going to be helped along by a charity physical re-release. But in the end that sentiment failed to materialise. Shane was mourned for sure, but aside from his contribution to a famous Christmas favourite he was hardly a much-beloved superstar. Fairytale Of New York was in the Top 5 mix, but no more so than it normally always is. Any potential hype died away fairly rapidly, the song coming to rest for the Christmas chart at No.6, actually down one place on last week.
So what transpired in the end was what was for the most part an intriguing two-way cross-generational battle. Two Christmas-themed songs were duking it out for the crown of Christmas No.1 2023. One brand new, and one very old but still much appreciated.
The Pre-Beard Years
The winner was the song which led the way right from the start. Wham's now 39-year-old festive classic Last Christmas. But before you roll your eyes at this, this is something at least for now to regard as notable. Because it does indeed give us plenty of stories to tell.
For a start the Christmas No.1 is the incumbent chart-topper, this now the single's third week in a row at No.1 for this particular chart run. That makes it the first Christmas No.1 to begin its run at the top before the festive chart week itself, Ed Sheeran's many-versioned Perfect having also ascended to No.1 in mid-December to enjoy its third week at the top for Christmas itself in 2017. And who could forget Clean Bandit's Rockabye a year earlier, Christmas No.1 for 2016 in its seventh of what would be nine weeks in total at the top. So Last Christmas hasn't just nicked the crown at the last minute, oh no. It has been building up to this for weeks.
In fact no, make that years, because as noted Last Christmas was first recorded and released way back in 1984. It would, under most normal circumstances, have been the Christmas No.1 that year and crowned a quite spectacular year for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. But then fate, the Ethiopian famine, and the OG all-star charity single intervened. Do They Know It's Christmas and Last Christmas became the first singles ever to debut at 1 and 2 in the same week and became locked together for the rest of the holiday period. So now 39 years later some form of justice is finally served, the most famous of 80s festive songs finally joins the pantheon of Christmas No.1 singles. In the process it sets a new record as the oldest recording to ever top the Christmas chart, beating Reet Petite by Jackie Wilson which was a true golden oldie when it topped the charts for Christmas in 1986 - and yet it was at the time "only" 29 years old. The equivalent of a song from - gosh - 1994 doing so today. In case you were wondering, Mariah Carey's 29-year-old classic is No.3 this week.
A Spaniel Is Not Just For Christmas
So what was the single that harried George and Andrew amidships for most of the week? The No.2 single of the week is That's Christmas To Me by Sam Ryder, a quite extraordinary achievement in itself since for streaming purposes the single remained mostly exclusive to the Amazon Music platform. It was also on YouTube, although remember that most plays on that platform are ad-funded ones and so count for half of paid streams, but there was also a physical release too. Sam himself took on the fight with great enthusiasm, effectively the only pop star to be doing any kind of promotion this week. His Sam-ta's Grotto Bus toured the nation, and he popped up on both Live Lounge and The One Show in the course of doing 26 different shows across the last six days. He was not going down without a fight for sure.
Handicapped it may have been by not being on Spotify or Apple Music, but That's Christmas To Me did at least have the advantage of being a Standard Chart Ratio single, its streams of any kind counting for double those of the Wham track. For that reason alone it more than held its own during all the midweek flashes, but a gap of a few hundred copies rapidly melted away to one of several thousand. If the single had only been on more platforms, could it possibly have overcome the gap? Alas, we shall never know, and in the end poor Sam ends up almost 6,000 chart sales behind Last Christmas. The most heroic Christmas No.2 single we've seen in quite literally years.
To be specific about those numbers briefly, Sam Ryder's total was just shy of 56,000 chart sales leaving Wham to take the Crown with 61,784 sales. Which was by no means an insurmountable total for any charity single that cared to mount a challenge. But nobody was up to the job.
The New Boys
The rest of the Top 10 is mostly filled up with the usual suspects, Ed and Elton at No.5, Brenda Lee at No.7, Michael Buble at No.9 and Shakin' Stevens at No.10 the ones not yet mentioned. Full credit where it is due has to go to the two current hit singles that continued to hold their own. Consumption of modern-day pop hits doesn't cease altogether at Christmas, we just can't see it quite as much as usual against all the background noise. But standing out from the crowd are Noah Kahan's Stick Season at No.4 and former No.1 Lovin On Me by Jack Harlow at No.8. A refreshing burst of unseasonal pop just to break up the monotony.
We are all still trying to guess just who will emerge from the chaos in a fortnight's time when the Christmas songs all get banished to their box in the digital loft for the next 11 months. Based on what we see today Noah Kahan is the man with the advantage. But remember what I said about making assumptions? There's a massive wild card on the way which I'm not allowed to talk about yet. Although you may have heard rumours by the time you read this.
A full list of all the Christmas songs and where they have landed would serve little purpose, particularly when you note that this week is by no means peak Christmas - that as ever set to be next week's chart which will cover streams on 22, 23, 24 and 25 December. After which everything starts to return to normal. Keep a weather eye on two 21st century semi-classics which are fighting doggedly for their highest ever chart placings. Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me spends a third straight week at No.11 and is angling to become a Top 10 hit for the first time ever, meanwhile Underneath The Tree by Kelly Clarkson is up to No.13, just one place below its all-time peak that it first scaled on the final chart of 2022.
Cost A Million Dollars To Look This Good
There is however one final singles chart story to tell. Riding a wave of goodwill and a desire to see her do something special, Cher's brand new festive recording DJ Play A Christmas Song (taken from her new album Christmas) soars from No.41 all the way up to No.20. In the process she sets some fascinating new benchmarks. For a start she is old, really really old. At the age of 77 and 7 months she becomes the oldest woman ever to claim a Top 40 hit single - a record which was previously held by Shirley Bassey as a solo artist (70 years 4 months when she charted with The Living Tree in 2007) and Hylda Baker who was 73 years and 7 months old when she duetted with Arthur Mullard on an extraordinary version of You're The One That I Want in September 1978.
Cher also becomes the first artist ever to score a Top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades. She can now boast brand new original hits in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s. Not even veterans such as Cliff Richard or Elton John can boast that kind of extended chart life.
Mossy
Mind you this turns out to have been a Christmas for the veterans overall. No.1 on the album chart for Christmas (not that this is anything like the accolade it used to be) are The Rolling Stones who return to the top with their Hackney Diamonds album following the release of a new special edition which adds a disc of live recordings. I guess you could say this writes a long-standing historic wrong, the band denied the Christmas No.1 album in 1969 when their Let It Bleed album was replaced at the death by Abbey Road from The Beatles which returned to the top after a week away.
In years gone by I've bemoaned that the Christmas chart was the most anticipated of the year but the one which took the shortest time to write up. This time for a change there has been plenty to relate. But if Last Christmas is stuck at the top for the whole of December 2024 as well, don't say I wasn't here to warn you. I'm off to enjoy my winnings. Happy Christmas.
