The Christmas number one race – and how to win it

This year’s Christmas number one singles will be released on Friday, featuring a mix of old favourites, new efforts and wild cards.

Last year, Wham! Classic Last Christmas tops the yuletide singles chart, This was notably the first time since its release in 1984 that an original Band Aid release made it out of the number one spot.

As is tradition, the festive number one will be announced on BBC Radio 1’s chart show from 16:00 GMT on the Friday before Christmas.

At the time of writing, a whole list of naughty and nice artists are hoping to top the list.

Wow!The hit is on the rise after topping the last chart before Christmas as people streamed it to get into the festive spirit. It has also been reissued on CD and 12-inch vinyl for its 40th anniversary for the final week of the chart race, giving it a further boost.

Another seasonal staple, Mariah Carey’s What I want for Christmas isn’t far behind.

Also in this year’s mix Brenda LeeThe latest incarnation of the ‘Golden Oldie Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ and band Aid,

They’ve been joined by a new festive tune tom grennanwhile by song Ariana Grande And Kelly Clarkson have established themselves as returning Christmas classics.

Or the chart crown could go to something non-Christmassy – like a recent hit. Gracie Abrams, Rose And Bruno Marsor fast growing lola young,

There was a long period when Christmas number one was reserved for the latest X Factor winner – seven times between 2005-14 – or novelty charity-fundraising sausage-roll enthusiast Ladbaby, who was a five-time winner between 2018-22.

And like buying gifts, according to Official Charts Company boss Martin Talbot, the key for any artist involved now is to step into Christmas with confidence and a strategy and go early.

“The singles market these days, in general, is dominated by year-round streaming,” he says.

“But the Christmas market is a market where you can sell a lot of physical (copies and) a lot of downloads and really make a big difference. Because people want to buy gifts.

“That’s where Wham! (with the 40th anniversary re-release) will do really well this year.”

Physical or download sales far outnumber streams in the charts in the digital age.

“The second thing is that if you have a charity record, we shouldn’t be ashamed of it,” says Talbot.

That adage isn’t a cliché for Bob Geldof and the Band Aid team, who are at it again with their 40th Anniversary Ultimate Mix, which has grabbed the headlines this time. after ed sheeran says Due to the song’s depiction of Africa, he would like his vocals not to be used again.

Talbot says, “When people engage with charity records, they’re not doing it because they specifically want to hear the charity record over and over again.

“Streaming doesn’t really work.” Instead, he says: “It’s all about voting. And you cast your vote by downloading or buying a physical product.”

ex 17, respected and creator And celebs They are also all making efforts to help various charitable organizations this year South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.

Mariah’s slow-moving 1994 anthem finally topped the UK charts for the first time in 2020, Return to peak in 2022,

Yet, despite it being shouted down by revelers across the country every December, the unofficial queen of Christmas (Her bid to trademark the surname was rejected by US authorities.) Never topped the UK charts during the Christmas week.

“It was the first Christmas song I wrote and I was just thinking about all the things I really wanted for Christmas,” she said. Recently Rilan said this in an interview given to BBC,

“I think I’ve changed it to, if there’s something you love, it means more than all those other things.” Oh!

Her tunes, like Wham!’s and Band Aid’s, have benefited from being heavily promoted by streaming services such as Spotify, Apple and Amazon in their top Christmas playlists.

In recent years, Amazon has thrown its weight behind new Christmas songs that are exclusive to its service. They included Sam Ryder’s You’re Christmas to Me, which narrowly lost out to Wham! last year, and Ellie Goulding’s River, which topped the charts just after Christmas in 2019.

This year, Grennan’s soulful, love-filled It Can’t Be Christmas is available exclusively through Amazon Music.

Grennan, who actually wrote the track in Los Angeles over the summer, said it was a “no-brainer” for him to collaborate with the streamer to create his own celebration song.

Amazon also hires Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter lofiThe magic of Christmas.

He said it was “a fun challenge” to be asked to bring the original copy to fight against the usual suspects.

The classically trained star’s jazzy number is featured in Red One, a holiday-themed action film starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans and Lucy Liu — and produced by Amazon.

Chart expert James Masterson says the race for the Christmas number one began in 1984 as an invention of British bookmakers.

Although it produced a number of bona fide pop hits, he believes the concept has been “ruined” in recent years, not least by well-intentioned ladbabies.

Of the Ledbaby era he says, “It became pointless to speculate that there was going to be a Christmas number one.”

“That’s why, when he didn’t release any songs last year, it created a void and it was a void that no one came forward to fill.”

Last Christmas “won by default”, he says, because it appeared at the top of all Christmas playlists, “every year, the same old songs in almost the same order”.

Masterson says that the crowded Christmas market has led many record labels to feel that it is no longer worth worrying about the year-end charts.

Chart rules dictate that songs released in the last three years are given more favorable weighting than songs already in the Christmas canon.

But despite that factor in his favor, he feels it’s becoming harder for artists to “get lucky” with really good new seasonal songs and “get enough momentum.”

“My view is that if Last Christmas by Wham! gets Christmas number one again by default, it would be a disaster for the whole concept,” he concluded.

So anyone who is late is starting to bid – even if they are late fans Liam Payneliberal democrat leader ed davy Or yorkshire pudding boy , Will probably require a cracking campaign.

There have been upsets in the past – fans of Rage against machine killing in name 2009 marked a small but welcome nod to the monopoly of The X Factor.

Talbot thinks that if Sheeran really “wanted to go for it” with his song Under the Tree from Richard Curtis’s That Christmas film, he could have challenged Wham! And Carrie.

Alternatively, “rogue events can be really powerful”, meaning cynthia ervivo And Grande’s gravity-defying figure may bring a “surprise” when family and friends go to the movies.

American pop sensation sabrina carpenter have released a Christmas-focused EP, Fruitcake, which may top the festive album charts, but its tracks aren’t looking to be in the running for the singles crown.

So it’s starting to look a lot like Wham! Christmas will be number one again – just like last Christmas.