← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
The Christmas is All Around Edition
01:10:54
The annual derby for UK Christmas No. 1 is the world’s most hotly contested pop-chart contest. But can the competition survive in the streaming age?
Loading summary
Transcript77 lines
- [00:00]
A
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one? Series on today's show. Happy holidays from all of us at Hit Parade. In the spirit of the season, we're going to play a bounty of Christmas hits. Not all of them Christmas music, but all of it is, in a very specific way, very British. Confused. Why am I playing this 80s synth pop song? What do the Pet Shop Boys have to do with the holiday season? Well, their version of Always On My mind reached number one in the United Kingdom in late December 1987, which means popping Pet Shop Boys. Always on My Mind has gone down in the history books as part of a very specific, literally provincial pop chart tradition.
- [01:32]
B
Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day.
- [01:41]
A
I will confess, as an American follower of the pop charts every December, I am deeply envious of of my friends in the United Kingdom, because in no country in the world are the pop charts followed so avidly as they are in Great Britain. This is basically true year round. The UK is a smaller country than the US and a larger proportion of British citizens seem to feel a more proprietary ownership of their pop charts than many Americans feel about their Billboard charts. But at no time of year is British chart following more intense than at the holidays. The Brits have even made an annual national pastime out of it.
- [02:28]
C
We are both going for the tightest spot in the world of music, the Christmas number one.
- [02:33]
B
It's war.
- [02:35]
C
Total war.
- [02:38]
A
For 45 years now, all of England, I mean the whole country, not just chart obsessed music nerds like me, has made a sport of what song would top the charts the week of Christmas. The competition even generates wagers with British pubs, bookies and betting parlors. It is covered in UK newspapers, on the telly and on the radio on BBC Radio 1.
- [03:06]
C
So then this is where we're about to find out what's going to happen for Christmas number one this year.
- [03:12]
A
And in the run up to the holiday in November and December, British chat shows analyze the contenders and try to predict what elements will bring about a Victor 60s wall of sound esque kind.
- [03:26]
B
Of vibe that's complete with sleigh bells and bell chimes.
- [03:29]
A
I think that's really necessary for a Christmas album.
- [03:31]
C
Some people are comparing it to like Mariah Carey, All I Want for Christmas.
- [03:34]
A
While there are patterns to the kinds of songs that tend to do well in this perennial sweepstakes or often the winner is a fluke. To be sure, many years the UK Christmas Number one has been a predictable or best selling Christmas song. But just as often the Victor has been a straight up pop blockbuster that happened to peak at just the right time of year. Cover songs are also notorious for doing well in the Christmas number one competition.
- [04:28]
B
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you.
- [04:36]
A
And then there have been freak years where the unlikely winner is a sticky pudding of a novelty song that will never be heard from again except on UK Christmas no.1 commemorative shows like this one. As silly as all this might seem, the the chart competition in Old Blighty is taken quite seriously indeed. Each year certain British songs are recorded and specifically timed for the Christmas chart. And head to head battles between warring singles are quite common. In fact, some legitimate holiday classics have found themselves falling just shy in a tough year.
- [05:27]
B
And the bells are ringing out for Christmas.
- [05:34]
A
One year in particular, a coterie of British citizens actually took up virtual arms to stage a rebellion. An online movement generated a Christmas number one that was a straight up protest. The whole contest has become such a national treasure slide slash in joke not just in the UK but around the world that it inspired the funniest subplot in the top grossing British holiday movie of all time.
- [06:14]
B
So if you really love Christmas, come on, let it snow.
- [06:22]
A
This is, isn't it?
- [06:24]
B
Yep, solid gold shitmeister.
- [06:28]
A
We will get to all this. But what is most charming about the UK Christmas Number One is that like many holiday traditions, it came about quite organically. It all started innocently enough when two UK rock bands dominating the charts in the early 70s decided they would both issue holiday singles at the same time to cheer up a recessionary Great Britain. And only one of these songs could possibly emerge as the winner. Today on Hit Parade, we will look past our old standby, the Billboard Hot 100, and turn our attention across the pond to the one week every year when an entire nation's eyes turn toward the summit of the UK pop chart. Especially that fateful week in the 70s when two Christmas singles both went for the crown.
- [07:40]
B
Merry Christmas, Everybody's having fun.
- [07:48]
A
And that is where your hit parade marches today. The week of December 15, 1973, when Slade reached the top of the United Kingdom's official charts Company Singles chart with the holiday classic Merry Christmas Everybody. Slade's Holiday perennial is a quintessentially British hit, although it receives some scant airplay on US stations around the holidays. Merry Christmas Everybody has never appeared on the Hot 100 or any billboard chart. Before we dive headlong into British chart history, let's take one brief look at our American hit parade and consider why we Yanks aren't similarly obsessive about our late December chart topper. Obviously, there is a Christmas number one in America. It's whatever happens to be ATOP the Hot 100 the last full week of December. Last December 25, for example, the song topping the chart was this Ed Sheeran ballad. But there's nothing exceptional about this number one US hit. Certainly there's no media hype around it. In fact, if you want to hear the last time that a Christmas song, I mean a song about Christmas, hit number one here, you have to go all the way back to the year the Hot 100 was invented.
- [09:24]
B
Christmas, Christmas time is here Time for toys and drink for tears.
- [09:36]
A
I apologize to those of you who recoil from the high pitched antics of Alvin and the Chipmunks, but the fact is, David Seville's novelty hit, The Chipmunk Song, aka Christmas Don't Be Late holds a unique place in US chart history. It reached the top of the Hot 100 in December 1958, less than six months after Billboard launched the chart. Mind you, Billboard was tracking hits years before 1958. Bing Crosby's classic White Christmas, for example, topped the charts multiple times during the 1940s. But pre Hot 100, Billboard charts were not as robust. They were smaller and based on more limited data. The Hot 100 was the music industry's first unified, all encompassing chart, combining record sales and radio airplay. And since the Hot 100 became America's yardstick for hit music, no Christmas song since the Chipmunk Song has topped it in the uk. The pop charts also began to be standardized in the 1950s, and they were taken over by the UK music industry by the late 60s. During the 50s and 60s, numerous Christmas songs did quite well on the UK charts, from British crooners like Dickie Valentine.
- [11:06]
B
C is for the candy trimmed around the Christmas tree H is for the happiness with all the family to global.
- [11:18]
A
Calypso legend Harry Belafonte, who topped the UK chart in 1957.
- [11:25]
B
Hark now hear the angels sing A new king born today.
- [11:35]
A
And Christmas was important enough to the British recording industry that in the 60s, an act as enormous as the Beatles would record special holiday records just for their fan clubs.
- [11:48]
B
Christmas time is here again Christmas time.
- [11:55]
A
Time is here again but all along there has been a huge difference between the British and American charts, which helps explain why the Christmas number one would later become a bigger deal in the uk. For most of its history, the British chart has only measured one sales of singles. More recently, in the 2010s, streaming music was added to the formula and as it was in America. But for more than half a century, the number one song in the UK was the best selling song period. Nothing else counted. That includes radio airplay. It has never been factored into the UK charts, whereas in America, the Hot 100 has always been a hybrid chart combining song sales and radio airplay. Radio is a tempering force on the Hot 100. It is therefore much more difficult for novelty or seasonal singles to top our charts. Yes, even for Mariah Carey, who by the way, is in the top 10 on the Hot 100. As I speak with All I Want For Christmas is yous, a song that has to date never been number one.
- [13:15]
B
When I was gone. True, All I Want for Christmas is you, you.
- [13:26]
A
But back to the uk, before the modern era of streaming and Spotify, one strong week of sales in record shops was all a single needed to top the UK official charts Company Singles list. And if that single was timed right for Christmas, which in the age of the old school record retailer was often the top music sales week of the year in England, a country with, by the way, no Thanksgiving and hence no Black Friday, your song could shoot straight in at number one. In short, this flukiness, the ability of a UK hit to emerge out of nowhere and top the chart, is what made the UK Christmas one phenomenon. And that brings us back to the two bands who in 1973 were nakedly lobbying for that seasonal song Crown. Before the UK Christmas no.1 was a thing. Slade and wizard made it a thing. Sorry, Slade. Or better yet, Wizard. If you are a Yank like me, you may be asking, uh, who. This is? Run Run Away, slade's only top 20 hit in America in 1984. They never broke big here, but in their home country a decade earlier, at the height of glam rock, Slade were megastars. Loud, brash, almost metal, yet very catchy. From 1971 to 1973, Slade scored a half dozen UK1 hits. At least one of these hits will be familiar to American audiences, as it was later covered by 80s hair metal band Quiet Riot. Slade's March 1973 UK no.1 smashed Come On, Feel the Noise. In keeping with their petulant image, Slade liked to misspell the titles to their songs. Come On, Feel the Noise spelled Come C U M and Noise with a z. Later in 73, Slade's number one follow up squeeze Me Please Me was possibly even louder. And like Come on Field of Noise, half of the title was misspelled with K's, W's and Z. In 1970. In 1973, Slade's major competition on the UK charts was wizard, arguably an even more British British band formed by Roy Wood, an early member and co founder of the Electric Light Orchestra. Wizard, that's with two Z's by the way, were glam rock gone retro. Their hits blended the 70s crunch of glam with the wall of sound and brassy pop of old Phil Spector singles. Despite these old school touches, wizard were serious 1973 hit makers, scoring two UK number ones that year alone. The bopping See My Baby Jive. And the girl group greaser anthem Angel Fingers, subtitled a teen ballad. Going into the final months of 73, both Slade and Wizard had a legitimate claim as the most popular glam rock band on the British charts. If either of them was going to record a Christmas song, you would guess it would be wizard, given their classic Phil Spector like sound. Sure enough, in the late summer of 73, the band recorded I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, complete with old school sax, jingling bells and cooing female backing vocals. By contrast, the lurid Slade seemed far less likely to produce a Christmas single. Indeed, if one band member's mother in law hadn't said something snippy, they might never have written Merry Christmas Everybody. Jimmy Lee, Slade's bassist, recalled a 1973 conversation in which his wife's mother pointed out that despite all of the band's big hits to date, Bing Crosby's White Christmas still sold better every year than any of Slade's hits. Why don't you write something like White Christmas? She asked. I got a bit annoyed, Jimmy would tell the Guardian decades later. I was young and full of testosterone, thinking don't tell me what to do. In response, Lee grafted a verse melody he came up with in the shower to an old chorus melody that vocalist Noddy Holder had come up with in 1967 but never used. Jimmy gave the bones of the song to Naughty, who completed it with hopeful lyrics meant to cheer up Britain after a tough couple of years of recession and a months long miners strike.
- [19:29]
B
Everybody's having fun. Look to the future now. It's only just because.
- [19:45]
A
The most surprising thing about Merry Christmas Everybody is its near total lack of Christmas sonic signifier. No chiming bells, no children's chorus and it ends with a heavy metal scream. Slade and wizard only became aware of their competing singles. In December 1973, when both bands were booked to appear on the same television program, Lift off with Ayesha, hosted by wizard leader Roy Wood's then girlfriend, Aisha Aisha Hague, she approached Slade and said, quote, roy Wood and Wizard have got this Christmas song they're doing. I really think it'll be number one, Slade's Dave Hill recalled. So we said, really? We've got one of them as well. Wizards single was issued first. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every day entered the UK chart at number 19 one week into December 1973. It looked like the early break had given wizard the edge, until one week later, Slade's single spelled in typical fashion for them, Merry Xmas, Everybody debuted on the UK chart all the way up at number one. Wizard would wind up stalling at number four on the British chart. Although I Wish It Could Be Christmas, Every Day remains a UK holiday perennial. It was overshadowed by Slade's Christmas classic, which outsold Wizards by hundreds of thousands of copies. Wizard leader Roy Wood reportedly took the news hard. Bassist Rick Price would later comment, quote, without Slade being there, I don't think we'd have had a problem. But business wise, it was a bit of a kick in the nuts for Roy. Most important, this glam rock Christmas chart competition captivated the nation and got the attention of other recording artists. One year later, in December 1974, another best selling glam rock band, Mud, recorded their own 50s holiday pastiche, an homage to the sound of Elvis Presley called Lonely this Christmas, and it too soared to number one. For the rest of the 1970s, a range of artists had a run at the UK Christmas number one spot and patterns started to emerge. The hit didn't necessarily have to be about Christmas. Singles did better if they were grand or sentimental, maybe even a little over the top. In 1975, for example, Emerson, Lake and Palmer member Greg Lake reached number two with his chiming majestic I Believe in Father Christmas they sold me a dream.
- [23:13]
B
Of Christmas they sold me a sire knight.
- [23:20]
A
But the only thing keeping Lake out of number one was an even bigger and more majestic single, Queens smash Bohemia Rhapsody, which had no obvious Christmas theme. But its operatic bombast played so well around the holidays that it sold 2 million copies and for about a decade ranked as the top selling British single of all time.
- [23:54]
B
Body's Aching all the Time, Goodbye Everybody, I've Got To Go.
- [24:03]
A
Or how about Paul McCartney's sentimental wing single Mull of Kintyre, a B side in America but a smash in his homeland. Named for the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland where McCartney owned a farm. Mull of Kintyre was again utterly unrelated to Christmas and more than a bit treacly. But to the British public it came off as a hymn and a standard. It not only took the Christmas 1977 UK crown, it dominated the British chart for nine weeks, matching Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
- [24:49]
B
From the Sea.
- [24:53]
A
But more often, artists striving for a UK Christmas number one were deliberate about it and they hedged their bets with a song making direct reference to the holiday. German Jamaican vocal group Boney M were in the middle of a run of nine straight top 10 singles in England when they issued a cover of the Harry Belafonte Christmas song the Mary's Boy Child, which they transformed from his gentle calypso into Caribbean style Eurodisco. Boney M's bid for holiday dominance shot to number one in December 1978 in just two weeks and stayed there the entire month through Christmas.
- [25:42]
B
On Christmas day.
- [25:47]
A
By the 1980s the pattern was set. The UK Christmas number one was a thing. The contest was watched closely by the Fleet street press and the stakes grew higher. The types of winners would differ from year to year. Sometimes it was a well established act with a regular hit such as the Human League's 1981 Victor, also a US chart topping smash don't yout Want me.
- [26:16]
B
Don'T you want me baby, don't you want me?
- [26:24]
A
But sometimes it was a holiday centric novelty record, such as the goofy, quintessentially British hitmaker Shakin Stevens with 1985's Twinkly and Twee Merry Christmas everyone. The UK media loved the narrative that anything, even a one off could win. Such as in 1980 when a primary school singing group of kids aged around seven took the crown. Had there been no UK Christmas chart competition, it is hard to imagine the St Winifred's School choir topping the chart for a fortnight with their hokey holiday chestnut there's no one quite like Grandma.
- [27:18]
B
There's no one choir like Grandma and I know you will agree she always, always is a friend to you and she's a friend to me.
- [27:32]
A
Or consider the formerly hitless acapella group the Flying Pickets, who recorded an all vocal hymn like cover of the synth pop classic Only youy, originally by UK duo Yazoo, known in America as Yaz.
- [27:52]
B
All I needed was the love you gave All I needed for another day All I ever needed only you.
- [28:09]
A
Later named by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as her favorite single of the 1980s, which was an embarrassment to the socialist flying pickets who loathed Thatcher. The heartfelt Only you was Britain's Improbable Christmas number one of 1983.
- [28:30]
B
All I needed was the love you gave me All I needed for another day and all I ever needed.
- [28:48]
A
But the moment the UK public knew the Christmas number one had become a Thunderdome level competition was 1984, when three epic singles went head to head to head. And the most enduring of the three was the only one not to top the chart. It was blocked by two back to back number ones, one of which you likely know well, but the other one was by a totally 80s group who could not have been more British.
- [29:19]
B
Relax, don't do it when you want to go to West Relax, don't do it when you want to come Relax.
- [29:29]
A
Frankie Goes to Hollywood We're a cross between a boy band and a British village people, only not that cuddly. Frankie were not only openly queer, they were brazen, even confrontational in their frank sexuality. And in 1984 they were arguably the biggest pop group in Britain. It is hard to overstate their popularity for that one mad year, which kicked off with their ode to S and M. Relax, of course. Five week number one in January and February of 84, it was followed less than four months later by another number one, the nihilistic anti war agro dance jam Two Tribes, which was best remembered for its video in which imitators of then US President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko wrestled each other, drawing blood. The question going into the final months of 1984 was what Frankie would do as an even more scandalous follow up. And that's when they did the ultimate head fake. Their bid for a Christmas 1984 number one was a mostly earnest ballad, the operatic torch song the Power of Love. And its video was a straightforward, if somewhat kitschy and lurid recreation of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem. But it was not the Christmas number. It was in and out of the top spot in a single week in early December 1984. Frankie simply had too much competition that year, including a holiday single by the year's other campy pop superstars. Only their approach was far more heartfelt and warm. As we discussed in our George Michael episode of Hit Parade, Wham's Last Christmas is one of only two late 20th century holiday songs besides Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is yous to emerge as a standard in Wham's home country. In 1984. Last Christmas was a smash, selling 2 million copies. It still ranks among the 10 best selling British singles of all time. And yet this Christmas song was the holiday hit that missed it. Not only wasn't the 84 UK Christmas number one, it never reached the top at all, peaking at number two. That's because one week after Frankie vacated the top slot, it was occupied by the biggest British single of all time, and George Michael himself was even singing on it. Do they Know It's Christmas? The enduring, beloved and direct derided famine relief single by a 40 member supergroup who called themselves Band Aid, crashed onto the UK chart at number one. It was the first UK Christmas number one to debut on top since Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody 11 years before. This original version of Do They Know It's Christmas? Went on to sell 3 million copies in the UK alone by the end of 84, And it would hold the record as the top selling British single for 13 years until it was eventually surpassed by Elton John's Princess Diana tribute Candle in the Wind 1997. Interestingly and pertinent to this episode, Do They Know It's Christmas is the British song that has returned to the top the most times, three of those times as the Christmas number one flashing ahead a few years. It was brought back to the top in 1989, the song's fifth anniversary in in a chirpy version helmed by reigning UK dance pop producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman and sung by everyone from Kylie Minogue to boy bands Bros and Wet Wet, Wet. And Do They Know It's Christmas? Was a Christmas number one again in 2004. This version, credited to Band Aid 20, leaned in the direction of keening contemplative alt rock, featuring such vocalists as Coldplay's Chris, Martin, Keane's Tom Chaplin, Travis's Fran Healy and Dido. For the record, a fourth version, recorded in 2014 by Band Aid 30 was also a number one, but not a Christmas number one, spending a single week on top in November of that year. So Band Aid became a British perennial. But more important, the original 1984 blockbuster, coming just over a decade after the UK Christmas number one pastime was established, was arguably kicked off the competition's blockbuster years. Its defeat of both Frankie and Wham affirmed that the UK Christmas number one was bloodsport, not for the faint of heart. It wasn't even the last pitched battle of the 1980s. At the top of the show we played Pet Shop Boy's cover of Always On My Mind, made famous in years past by both Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. When Pet Shop Boy's version became 1987's Christmas number one. It surprised everyone, including the duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, who recorded the COVID on a lark for a late summer TV special commemorating the 10th anniversary of Presley's death. But what was even more remarkable about its Christmas 87 success was what it vanquished that included such heavily favored British hitmakers as Mel and Kim and Rick Astley. Yes, that Rick Astley in 87, the Froggy voiced crooner was an unironic pop chart topper in both the UK and the US And Astley's cover of the traditional pop standard When I Fall in Love was heavily favored to take the Christmas 87 crown, but it wound up peaking at number two or I'll never Fall.
- [37:19]
B
In Love.
- [37:24]
A
But the most heartbreaking near miss of Christmas 87, as excellent as the Pet Shop Boys single was, came from the unlikely duo of the Pogues and Kirsty McCall. The Pogues were a boozy, rollicking Celtic folk punk act not known for their balladry, and McCall was a more contemplative but still quirky vocalist whose few hits included a single called There's a Guy Works down the Chip Shop, Swears He's Elvis. Neither act had ever made the UK top five, but that all changed in 1987 when they teamed up for the rousing, moving and occasionally foul mouthed Christmas ballad Fairy Tale of New York. Fairy Tale was a left field hit for all involved. The Pogues wrote it as early as 1985. Their dentally challenged frontman Shane McGowan still claims it was the result of a Christmas songwriting bet with fellow British Irishman Elvis Costello. And it nearly wasn't a duet as McCall, wife of producer Steve Lillywhite, was only added to the track late in the game call Controversial for its use of an in character gay epithet, Fairy Tale tells the story of a degenerate Irish immigrant's Christmas Eve experience in a New York jail cell sleeping off a bender and his long imperfect romance with the woman who loved her. It was a quirky story song not at all guaranteed to become a hit. But what McGowan and McCall recorded together became not just the best known song of their respective careers, it is among the best loved British songs period of the last three decades. Since its original release, Fairy Tale routinely tops polls as the best Christmas song of all time and it ranks as the most played British Christmas song of the 21st century. It is heartbreaking to consider it missed its chance to be a UK Christmas number one, except it was improbable for the song to even exist in the first place. After peaking at number two in December 1987 behind the pet Shop Boys, Fairy Tale has reached the UK top 20 an additional 14 times.
- [40:09]
B
And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day.
- [40:15]
A
What makes the Pogues McCall story so heartening is its serendipity, its happenstance. But by and large, that's not how the UK Christmas 1 competition proceeded. For the rest of the 80s and 90s, artists of all stripes knowingly threw their hats into the ring. Cliff Richard, a veteran UK pop star whose career dated to the teen idol days of the late 50s, made a small career out of Christmas number ones. In 1988, Cliff Richard took the crown with his sentimental single Mistletoe and Wine. Children sing Christian rhymes and two years later in 1990, Richard was back on top with the more overtly religious, downright mawkish Savior's Day. The Christmas number one was becoming a showcase for pop megastars who could best express their megastardom by commanding the British charts at the holidays without even invoking snow or mistletoe. In the late 90s, the Spice Girls, yes them again pulled off a record which remains unmatched. They strung together three straight years of UK Christmas number ones and all of them were mid tempo ballads, not their normal uptempo dance jams. Each was deliberately promoted for the holiday season. In 1996 the Spice Girls topped the Christmas chart with their Safe Sex Ballad 2 Become 1. And in 1997 they they took the Christmas slot again with their retro R and B ballad Too Much. Finally in 1998, at the Cusp of a looming breakup with Jerry Ginger Spice Halliwell already out of the group, they used this UK Christmas number one to give their fans a final goodbye. It seemed the only type of single that could overcome the warring multi platinum chart dominators for the Christmas number one spot during this period were kid centric novelty records. The 1993 title was taken by a character in a pink rubber costume from a BBC TV variety show who called himself Mr. Blobby. While his It's Single, also called Mr. Blobby featured a children's chorus, the character was actually a satire of children's television watched on an evening adult telly program. By 1994, UK newspapers reported that Brits had already tired of the Mr. Blobby character. And in in 2000 the Christmas title was won by an actual children's TV mainstay still on air to this day who called himself Bob the Builder. His can do single was called Can We Fix. Became Increasingly rare for a medium level one off pops hit to take the title a la Mud, the Flying Pickets or Shaken Stevens. It did happen in 1994 when a sweet, cheesy and slightly naff boy band called East 17 scored their only number one hit with the elegiac Christmas number one, Stay Another Day.
- [44:54]
B
Think I could take the pain, Won't you stay?
- [45:04]
A
But more often, only the big boys and girls came to play. On Christmas Day. In 2001, at the absolute peak of his popularity, former boy bander turned leading lad Robbie Williams took the title in a duet with with the normally non singing actress Nicole Kidman. A remake of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra jazz pop Bolero Something Stupid. Entering the 21st century, it appeared the UK Christmas no.1 couldn't get much more premeditated. It had become such an in joke that British filmmaker Richard Curtis knew he was on solid ground poking fun at it in his highest grossing, most star studded film.
- [46:13]
B
Christmas Is All Around Me.
- [46:17]
A
Love actually is an overstuffed 2003 Christmas comedy with at least two dozen major roles and at least 10 separate storylines. Every holiday season movie fans debate whether it is a delightful Christmas rom com or a crass rank glass of filmic eggnog. The lovers and haters of the film will never agree. But one thing virtually everyone seems to co sign is that the film's funniest plot involves an aging rocker character, Billy Mack, played by Bill Nighy. Billy is trying for one last chart topping single and he has taken the groovy 60s song Love is All around by the Troggs and and turned it into a holiday trifle. And he himself admits it's garbage.
- [47:11]
C
So Billy, welcome back to the airwaves. New Christmas single cover of Love Is All Around. Except we've changed the word love to Christmas. Yes. Is that an important message to you Bill? Not really, Mike. How do you think the new record compares to your old classic stuff? Oh come on Mikey, you know as well as I do the record's crap. But wouldn't it be great if number one this Christmas wasn't some smug teenager, but an old ex heroin addict searching for a comeback at any price? So if you believe in Father Christmas children like your Uncle Billy does, buy my festering turd of a record.
- [47:58]
A
So whether satirized or sanctioned, by the early aughts, the Christmas no. 1 had become a button down industry controlled tradition. Or so it seemed. In truth, when it came to the holiday song contest and salesmanship, the British hadn't seen anything yet.
- [48:18]
C
The whole Thing about Pop Stars the Rivals was ITV wanted to prove they could have the Christmas number one. We were manipulated by television.
- [48:32]
A
At the dawn of the reality show singing competition era, when Britain's Pop Idol was just a couple of years old and American Idol had only completed its first year, UK television network ITV devised the show Pop Stars the Rivals with an attention grabbing, somewhat cynical getting the entire United Kingdom to vote on a brand new prefabricated pop group just to record an intended Christmas number one. The thing is, it worked. Girls Aloud, a five woman group literally assembled during the show's first and only season, not only defeated their televised boy band rivals One True Voice, they did indeed score the 2002 Christmas number one. Their perky single mainstreamed the drum and bass sound that had dominated underground British dance music in the prior decade. The song had the cheeky and knowing title sound of the underground. Girls Aloud did wind up becoming enduring British hitmakers for the rest of the aughts. And with 2020 hindsight, pop stars the Rivals looks like a kids winsome holiday pageant. Compared with what happened to both British reality competition shows and the Christmas number one for the rest of the decade, Girls Aloud were a harbinger of a much more insidious if squeaky clean sounding trend.
- [50:20]
B
Well, I know I've acted foolish but I promise you no more.
- [50:28]
A
Shane Ward was the winner of the second season of the British reality competition show the X Factor, brainchild of notoriously opinionated producer and singing judge Simon Cowell. Right from the jump. When the X Factor premiered in the fall of 2004, Cowell intended for each winner's debut single to be released just in time for Christmas. That's my Goal for four solid years, starting with Shane Ward's that's my Goal. Whoever won that year's X Factor took the UK Christmas number one in a walk. No muss, no fuss, no suspense. Ward in 2005 was followed in 2006 by third season winner and future American hitmaker Leona Lucy Lewis, In 2007 by Leon Jackson. And in two 2008 by Alexandra Burke, who incidentally was the first recording artist to take a version of Leonard Cohen's much beloved standard Hallelujah to the top of the charts. The problems with this X Factor pattern were manifold. Not only were none of the song's Christmas records not unprecedented given the history of such UK Christmas number ones as Bohemian Rhapsody, don't yout Want Me and Always On My Mind, they were all gushy, faux, modest, secretly triumphal, inspirational reality show pablum with titles Like A Moment like this and when youn Believe. Worst of all, the series of X Factor winners, chart toppers sucked the last remaining bits of fun out of the Christmas number one Winners on a televised competition were neutering a real life annual chart competition. The predictability and the smug success of Simon Cowell, whose latest protege could be faithfully relied upon to top the charts, began to rankle the British public. To be fair to Cowell, both his show and the singles it generated were legitimately popular. Burke's cover of Hallelujah in 2008, for example, sold 576,000 copies in its first week alone, a staggering sales number in a country the size of Britain. That made it the fastest selling single released by a woman in UK chart history. But a key data stream had been added to the OCC chart during this four year period. The invention of the commercial digital download in the early 2000s, pioneered by Apple's Steve Jobs and his iTunes music store, gave British consumers a new way to acquire their music. By 2005, digital download sales had been added to the chart, the first truly new data stream on the UK chart in roughly half a century. The UK hit parade was still only a sales chart, but digital sales were frictionless and massive. And they revolutionized the way British citizens could vote for a hit. And that would lead to the most unlikely UK Christmas number one of all, all time. More unlikely even than the St Winifred school choir or Mr. Blobby or Bob the Builder. It was by a band who weren't even trying for a pop hit, let alone a Christmas number one. And it was all started by one man on his laptop named John Mortar. Hello, John. Hello.
- [54:57]
B
Has it sunk in yet? This is mad, isn't it?
- [54:59]
C
It's crazy, isn't it? No, it hasn't sunk in yet at all. It's just been a complete whirlwind since we we found out that it had actually gone to number one.
- [55:09]
A
Mortar was a hi fi technician from Essex in Southeast England. Other than being an audiophile and a music fan, Mortar had no special qualifications to start a movement related to his country's Christmas number one. And it took more than one try. In 2008, fed up with the X Factor winner snatching the title every year, Mortar launched a campaign to make Rick Astley's 1987 number one smash, never gonna Give youe Up reach the top of the British Christmas chart. Mortar called this the ultimate Rickroll. At a time when that online bait and switch prank was a new thing on social media. Of course, As I previously noted, that year's X Factor winner was Alexandra Burke with her massively popular cover of Hallelujah. So while Morder's campaign drew an impressive 30,000 people in its first week, Rick Astley's old hit stood no chance of beating Burke. But Mortar learned from his experience and he came back a year later with another old track that that was not just cheeky, it was angry. American political rap rock band Rage against the Machine were not exactly big hit makers in their home country. They were relegated mostly to alternative rock radio. In England they scored some minor top 40 hits. All of which made John Mortar's 2009 campaign so unbelievable he proposed to get Rage's most famous and most foul mouthed song, Killing in the Name, a song that climaxes with a chant of F you, I won't do what you tell me to the top of the British charts the week of Christmas. In so doing, it would stop X Factor winner Joe McElderry and his inspirational track the Climb from taking the Christmas number one title. And it would prevent Simon Cowell's streak from extending to a fifth year.
- [57:32]
B
Now you do what they told ya. Now you do what they told ya now you do what they told ya now you do what they told ya now you do what they.
- [57:43]
A
Brits must have been as fed up as Mortar because this campaign stunningly worked. It didn't hurt that Mortar added an altruistic element, raising funds for a homeless charity called Shelter. But whether out of holiday generosity or just peek at Simon Cowell, more than 500,000 Brits downloaded killing in the Name during the key week in mid December that counted for the Christmas week chart. Rage against the machine's 16 year old protest anthem was the official UK Christmas number one for 2009. The good news was was John Mortar's movement had halted Simon Cowell's streak. The bad news was it really only paused the X Factor Christmas command. The very next year in 2010, another winner, Matt Cardle, was on top at Christmas with his X Factor coronation song when we collide. During the 2010s, in fact, three more X Factor winners had Christmas number number one songs. After the Rage campaign. The only other type of single that was found to stop Simon Cowell's televised monopoly was Do Gooder singles by non professional singers. In 2011, a left field single by a group calling itself Military Wives wound up taking the Christmas title. Military Wives were just that, spouses of British soldiers off fighting in the prolonged Afghanistan conflict. The wives, plaintive, heartrending, single wherever you are, proceeds of which benefited the Royal British Legion and Armed Forces charities, sold more than a half million copies to take the Christmas 2011 UK title. In fact, two more times in the early to mid 10? S charmingly non professional charitable singles took the Christmas title in 2012 the Justice Collective's cover of the Hollies, He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. And in 2015, a choir of doctors and nurses from the National Health Service, the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir, took the title. Their novel single was a mashup of Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water with Coldplay's Fix youx. They called their single, which benefited several healthcare charities, a Bridge over you. This string of amateur choirs gave the UK Christmas number one one last infusion of random chants, once again pausing the hegemony of reality tv. But frankly, some Brits might at this point even wish to have those X Factor coronation songs back in the running. Because the only thing worse than then a Christmas number one that is predictable is one that is not an exceptional single at all. For the last two years, and possibly, as you are listening to this podcast, a third the UK Christmas no.1 has not been a special, intentionally timed hit. Once again, data and the inner workings of the chart are what have changed the calculus. In the summer of 2014, the official charts company added streaming to the formula for the UK singles chart. It was the first time in its history that the chart measured more than just sales, and in the streaming world generally, the rich get richer and the hits get bigger. If a song is already being streamed heavily and added to thousands of playlists, its number of plays snowballs. By 2016, the chart was so dominated by streaming that singles were staying at number one longer, much the way they now do on Billboard's Hot 100 in America. And the perfectly ordinary, catchy but not Special Christmas number one for 2016 was the Clean Bandit single Rock a Bye, a song that was number one from mid November all the way through mid January. Its chart dominance didn't even pause for Christmas. At least Clean Bandit are a British group with only a few American hits. One year later in 2017, the The Same Song was number one in both America and the UK the last week of December, Ed Sheeran's slow dance ballad Perfect, a duet with Beyonce. It was number one in the UK for a month and a half. British chart watchers are now theorizing that the Christmas Number one competition is dying, as all of its quirk and its Britishness have been ironed out with not only physical sales, but even downloads fading in favor of streaming. It is near impossible for an out of nowhere track to sell a pile of copies in a single week and upset the pop chart apple cart the way everything from Slade to Cliff Richard to Rage against the Machine had in years past. We are putting this episode of Hit Parade out on the very day the official charts company plans to announce the 2018 UK Christmas number one. By the time you hear this, the song will have been revealed, a situation for which my producers and I apologize, but frankly I wouldn't get too excited. Oddsmakers this year are expecting a song that has been commanding the British and American charts since mid November. Ariana Grande's cheeky kiss off to her past boyfriend's Thank u Next to just continue in the number one spot for a seventh week. Thank u Next is an excellent and acclaimed single, but it's not much of a Christmas song. For only the third time ever, counting 1992 when Whitney Houston's world conquering I Will Always Love youe was dominant. And more depressingly, for the second year in a row, the US and UK Christmas number one will be the same song. Speaking as a chart obsessed American, I find this a sad state of affairs. United Kingdom We Yanks don't watch your Christmas chart contest to see you coronating the same big hits we're playing endlessly on this side of the pond. Your competition should have a whiff of the ridiculous. It shouldn't be about established platinum superstars like Sheeran or Grande, whatever you think of them. It should be about the cheese, the naff, the absurd, the Cliff Richards shaken Stevens' hell, even the Mr. Blobbies. Speaking of the absurd, I hate to leave my podcast listeners with such sad news. So here's a small glimmer of hope. Late last week, a 31 year old bloke from the town of Nottinghamshire named Mark Hoyle who calls himself Lad Baby online put out a video. In it he announced he was going to try to get his wife, Roxanne Hoyle, aka lad baby mum, mother of their 18 month old son, a unique holiday present. A UK Christmas number one. Mind you, Hoyle has essentially no musical talent and by the sound of it, his singing voice is no great shakes.
- [66:53]
B
We built this city we built this city on sausage we built this city Come on babe we built this city on sausage rocks if you've never had one and don't recognize the taste.
- [67:17]
A
Yes, this is a cover of We Built this city, the 1985 Starship smash with new lyrics and a new title We Built this City on Sausage Rolls. It is an homage to Mark Hoyle's favorite food. The lyrics, despite being about the universal subject of greasy comestibles, are nowhere near as good as Weird Al's. The backing track is barely competent, and the original Starship song is already cited in many music polls as one of the worst hits of all time. And yet there is something delightful in this whimsy. This is what the UK Christmas One used to be about. It's not much worse than Christmas is all about around the crass Billy Mack remake naked attempt to top the charts in love, actually, and Lad Baby is even more unabashed about his goal. Maybe it is too much to hope that We Built this City on Sausage Rolls takes the 2018 crown without a premeditated campaign. As I speak, it is too late for my British friends to stuff the streaming ballot box and give Lad Baby and Lad Baby Mum their Christmas week number one. But listen well, my old Blighty friends, and think of 2019 a decade ago. You got Rage against the Machine to number one. You can do it again. Don't Brexit your own UK Christmas tradition. Don't let the sun set on the British holiday pop music empire. You shall go on to the end. You shall stream Lad Baby on Spotify. You shall download him on the itunes. You shall request him with growing confidence on BBC1. You shall defend your Christmas number one tradition, whatever the cost may be. As the Christmas bells chime on the BBC beaches, in the fields and in the streets, you shall never surrender.
- [69:30]
B
It's not just a meat snack, it's.
- [69:34]
A
A way of life. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Senior producer TJ Raphael recorded this episode and it was edited by Chris Berube. We had help from Danielle Hewitt and Dan Berube. The managing producer of Slate Podcasts is June Thomas, and Gabriel Roth is the Editorial Director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Gabfest feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep calm and keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfi.
- [70:31]
B
We built this city on Sage Rocks Sausage Roll Sausage. Wrong city. They're not the words, right? That's not my song. Stop Rocks right security. Can we start this, please?