Yahoo News Christmas No 1s: Seven classic UK chart battles
As Shakin’ Stevens once told us, this time of year is the season for love and understanding — but when it comes to battling it out for the Christmas number one, it’s very much sleigh bells at dawn.
Truth be told, things haven’t been quite so tense in recent years. The rise of streaming paired with the decline of physical music sales has meant that topping the charts on December 25 isn’t as lucrative as it used to be and, as a result, isn’t quite as fiercely contested.
But back in the day (you know, before 2010), the matter of who took the top spot at Christmas was a very big deal indeed. Release campaigns were specifically co-ordinated to coincide with the run up to the big day, and though the major players often came out victorious (everyone from Whitney Houston to the Spice Girls have been successful in their bids), there have been some almighty upsets over the years.
Here are some of the most memorable festive battles.
Slade vs Wizzard (1973)
The concept of a festive number one first emerged in 1952, when the highest-selling singles in the week before Christmas were published in the NME. But it wasn’t until little over two decades later that the idea of making a concerted push to win over yuletide hearts and minds, and sit at the top of the pile come December 25, came about. The first two contenders were Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody and Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, both of which have been seared into the public psyche in the many years since. But in 1973, it was Noddy Holder and the gang who finished first — Wizzard could only muster fourth.
Wham! vs Band Aid (1984)
This one is less of a battle, and more of a curiosity: despite being one of those immovable festive fixtures year after year, Last Christmas by Wham! never made it to number one in the UK — not until January 2021, at least, when a tidal wave of streams helped it to shrug off the rather unwanted accolade of being the country’s biggest selling single to never top the charts. Back on its initial release in 1984, it was beaten by Band Aid’s all-conquering Do They Know It’s Christmas, but there certainly wasn’t any ill will: George Michael lent his vocals, and even agreed to donate royalties from Last Christmas to the Band Aid Trust.
Mr Blobby vs Take That (1993)
Anyone who watched Gary Barlow dismembering Mr Blobby on TV back in 2016 could quite reasonably have surmised that, for the Take That man, memories of 1993 were still a little bit raw. It’s understandable — to have your group’s own effort swept aside by an amorphous pink splat of a creature must rankle. Take That thought they had it in the bag with the release of Babe, but Mr Blobby’s eponymous single (which featured lyrical gems such as “Although he’s unconventional in hue/ His philosophy of life will steer him through”) took the top spot, and stayed there for three weeks. The boyband never did record a Christmas number one — what a blobby nightmare.
Mariah Carey vs East 17 (1994)
It was Brian Harvey and his merry band of parkas who topped the charts on December 25 in 1994, with Stay Another Day. It’s a classic of the season, no doubt, even if the debate about whether or not it’s technically a Christmas song continues to this day (fluffy hoods and snow doth not a Christmas song make…) And although East 17 triumphed over Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, by roughly 60,000 copies, the American artist has surely gone on to have the last laugh — to the tune of about 16 million worldwide sales, more than a billion Spotify streams and well over £45m in royalties.
Westlife vs Bob The Builder (2000)
After all the panic at the tail-end of the Nineties, Y2K didn’t end up causing a computer-based apocalypse. But the dawn of the 21st century did bring about something equally chilling: Bob The Builder at number one. What it says about our nation that a UK garage take on a children’s TV theme song not only got to number one, but also became the 10th best-selling song of the decade, we’d rather not delve too deep into — what is undoubtedly amusing, though, is that the song held off competition from Westlife, who topped the charts a year earlier, and also dethroned Eminem’s Stan, which had been at number one the week before.
Nizlopi vs Shayne Ward (2005)
Is it possible for a mid-Noughties chart battle to be any more mid-Noughties than Shayne Ward vs Nizlopi? Surely not. This was the beginning of Simon Cowell’s reign of yuletide terror, with Ward becoming the first X-Factor winner to bag the Christmas number one — and the trend would continue uninterrupted for three years after. Not even folky duo Nizlopi with their JCB song could hold back the tide.
Joe McElderry vs Rage Against The Machine (2009)
With X-Factor winners becoming nailed-on favourites for the Christmas number one every year after Shayne Ward, an internet campaign set about changing things. In 2009, the song chosen to take back the festive crown was Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine — and in this case, “the machine” turned out to be a softly spoken 18-year-old from South Shields. After a significant swell of online campaigning, poor old Joe McElderry lost out to the LA rockers, whose 1992 single sold 502,000 copies to McElderry’s 450,000. It wasn’t quite the end of the X-Factor era, though — 2010 winner Matt Cardle made sure business resumed as usual a year later, securing the number one with The Climb.
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