Wham! have finally earned a Christmas No 1 for Last Christmas, 39 years after the song was denied the festive top spot by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?.
With the song’s pain and poignancy still undimmed thanks to the tangibly heartbroken performance of the late George Michael, it was streamed 13.3m times this week, and was helped along by special vinyl and CD editions.
Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley said: “George would be beside himself [that] after all of these years, [we’ve] finally obtained Christmas No 1. Yog [George] said that he wrote Last Christmas with the intention of writing a Christmas No 1. It’s mission accomplished!
“It was a huge disappointment to us both when it didn’t reach No 1 [in 1984] because, in our opinion, it was nailed-on … Thwarted for many years subsequent to that – the perennial bridesmaid – over recent years it seems it’s become part of the fabric of Christmas for a lot of people.”
Last Christmas has topped the charts around Christmas before, but never on it, beginning in 2021 when it reached No 1 on New Year’s Day. It returned to the top in December 2022, and in 2023 has spent the previous two weeks at No 1. Using the “chart sales” metric that combines actual sales over the years with streams, Last Christmas is the third-biggest song in UK history, with Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You top and Band Aid second.
The Christmas No 1 race has been a bit of a foregone conclusion in recent years, thanks to the laudable charity fundraising efforts of YouTube star LadBaby keeping seasonal staples like Wham! and Mariah Carey off the top. The Nottinghamshire father of two, AKA Mark Hoyle, has scored an unprecedented five No 1s in a row since 2018, with cover versions of classic rock hits featuring punning lyrics about sausage rolls. Hoyle said he wouldn’t enter this year’s contest, saying “we’ve decided to pass the baton … We never expected it to be five, I’ll be totally honest. It’s one of those things that just happened over the years and we thought it was amazing that the public got behind us in the way that they did.”
His releases benefited food bank charity the Trussell Trust, which nonetheless had a boost this year thanks to another fundraising single, a cover of Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by TikTok collective Creator Universe, which reached No 29 and topped the sales and downloads charts (Wizzard’s original reaches No 26 in the official Top 40).
Elsewhere in the chart – and in a triumph for Christmas commercialism – former UK Eurovision star Sam Ryder is at No 2 with You’re Christmas to Me, a song created as a tie-in with Amazon. It features on the Amazon Prime movie Your Christmas or Mine 2, and was available to stream only via the retailer’s platform – chart analysts believe that a push of the song to Amazon’s Alexa smart speakers is partly behind its surprising success. Other Amazon-branded songs to perform well in recent years include Jess Glynne’s This Christmas and Ellie Goulding’s River, while this year Jorja Smith’s cover of Stay Another Day is at No 18 this week having previously broken the Top 10.
Ryder, though, worked hard for his chart placing, playing 26 gigs over the last six days. He was keen to underscore his credentials as an independent artist, operating without a label since his one-album contract with Parlophone Records for his 2022 debut studio LP. “We didn’t even expect it to chart,” he said of You’re Christmas to Me. “But here we are, in a Mariah Carey and Wham! sandwich, and we’re the filling. I’m stoked! I hope this has given some vigour and some fire to upcoming grassroots and indie artists. You can do it – you’ve just got to set your heart ablaze and get out there.”
Carey’s dependable All I Want for Christmas Is You is still to have a Christmas No 1, only reaching No 3 this year. Breakthrough US singer-songwriter Noah Kahan is a rare non-Christmassy presence at No 4 with Stick Season, while Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s Merry Christmas is at No 5 and Shakin’ Stevens is at No 10 with Merry Christmas Everyone. Festive hits from Andy Williams, Kelly Clarkson, Dean Martin and Band Aid are all in the Top 20, too.
There was disappointment for the Pogues and their fans, as the campaign to have Fairytale of New York reach No 1 fell short, with the song at No 6 this week. It had been hoped the song, which was held off Christmas No 1 in 1987 by Pet Shop Boys’ Always on My Mind, would top the charts to mark the death of frontman Shane MacGowan late last month, and a vinyl edition had been launched to help its chances.
Cher returned this year with an admirably banging dance-pop track, DJ Play a Christmas Song, which reaches No 20 this week. It makes her the oldest woman to score a UK Top 40 single, at 77 years old, surpassing previous record holder Shirley Bassey who was 70 when she reached No 37 with her song The Living Tree in 2007. (The oldest person to reach the Top 40 remains – and will possibly forever remain – Captain Tom Moore whose You’ll Never Walk Alone charted when he was 99 years old.)
Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said: “It’s incredible to consider that Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael were barely taking their first steps when Cher was enjoying her first UK No 1; almost 20 years before Last Christmas was released. Cher, we salute you!”
Cher’s Christmas album is at No 4 in this week’s album chart, which was topped by the Rolling Stones with Hackney Diamonds, in the week that guitarist Keith Richards turned 80. The veteran rockers’ 31st studio album reached No 1 on release in October but has remained hugely popular since, never leaving the Top 10. It was helped back to the top with a reissue featuring recordings of a live performance at New York’s Racket club.