A 'Big Ben' ornament hangs from the Christmas tree outside 10 Downing St., the British prime minister's London residence, on Dec. 10. The house's current occupant, Boris Johnson, is the subject of a rude ditty that's one of Britain's contenders for Christmas No. 1 song of the year.HOLLIE ADAMS/AFP via Getty Images
It’s one of Britain’s most hotly-contested competitions and this year’s entries include the Church of England, Ed Sheeran, Elton John, ABBA, George Ezra and a punk band whose name we won’t publish in a family newspaper.
The race to become the Christmas No. 1 is a uniquely British obsession that captivates the country throughout the holiday period. Newspapers have been filled for weeks with speculation about which song will win this year and bookies have been taking millions of pounds in bets. Social media has also been buzzing with campaigns by fans pushing their favourite tunes or just trying to cause havoc with oddball selections.
The criteria for the title is simple: the Christmas No. 1 is the song that tops the weekly music chart before Dec. 25. The tally is calculated through a complex formula that includes record sales and downloads from streaming services such as Spotify. And history shows that just about any song – good, bad or just plain wacky – can come out on top.
How wacky? Consider that in each of the past three years the Christmas No. 1 has been by a YouTuber called LadBaby, a.k.a. Mark Hoyle, who sings about sausage rolls. His 2020 chart topper – Don’t Stop Me Eatin’ sung to the tune of Journey’s 1981 hit Don’t Stop Believin’ – beat Mariah Carey’s perennial holiday favourite All I Want for Christmas Is You. Only The Beatles have scored more Christmas No. 1s than LadBaby.
Winning the coveted title isn’t just about bragging rights. Musicians have come to realize that thanks to streaming, scoring a seasonal hit can be lucrative because the song gets played over and over during the holidays for decades to come. Take glam rockers Slade for example. Their 1973 Christmas No. 1, Merry Xmas Everybody, has become a yuletide classic and earns the band an estimated £500,000 annually in royalties.
“There’s a new generation of artists and they think; I can write myself a really kind of cool Christmas hit that in 20 years or 50 years is still being played and earning money,” said Gennaro Castaldo of the British Phonographic Industry, which represents record companies.
BBC Radio 1 will announce the 2021 champion on Dec. 24 and many commentators say this is one of the best fields ever.
Mr. Sheeran and Mr. John have joined forces on a track called Merry Christmas, which came out earlier this month and is already climbing the weekly charts.
Among challengers is ABBA, which recently released the band’s first Christmas song called Little Things. The Church of England has also jumped into the fray for the first time with a choral rendition of the carol The Bleak Midwinter. George Ezra has stepped up with Come on Home for Christmas, a version of a 1960 song by blues singer Charles Brown. And LadBaby has returned with Sausage Rolls for Everyone, which is actually a riff on Mr. Sheeran’s and Mr. John’s Merry Christmas.
As for that punk band we aren’t naming, it has reworked a profanity-laced ditty about Prime Minister Boris Johnson that made it into the top five last year. And anti-Christmas enthusiasts have been supporting a song called Krampus by The Lathums, which is about the end of the world and declares that “Santa ain’t coming this year.”
Britain’s fascination with Christmas No. 1s dates back to the early 1950s and 60s, when Radio 1 started broadcasting weekly rankings and Top of the Pops became must-see television. Unlike other countries where radio stations and magazines drew up competing pop charts compiled by varying methods, Britain’s music industry developed a single official chart early on and ensured that just one national broadcaster, Radio 1, told everyone the results.
“For many years it was on a Monday and the charts would be announced on Radio 1 and everyone would listen attentively to see who would make it into the charts,” said Mr. Castaldo of the BPI, which co-owns the Official Charts Company. “It was really very much part of our culture.”
Not every Christmas No. 1 has had a holiday theme. Most have been simply the biggest hits of the day. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody has been No. 1 twice and Adele could win this year with her current hit Easy on Me.
The contest also fell into a bit of a lull a few years ago when the reality television show X Factor began to dominate. The show’s finale came just before the Christmas week, virtually ensuring that the winning song would be No. 1. Between 2005 and 2014, X Factor champions took the top spot seven times and there was so little interest in the Christmas No. 1 that bookies stopped taking bets.
The X Factor dominance sparked one of the biggest fan backlashes in the history of U.K. music charts. In 2009, part-time DJ Jon Morter and his wife Tracy led a social-media campaign to stop the talent show from taking the title that year. They launched a Facebook group urging people to download a decidedly unjoyful selection; the 1992 song by Rage Against the Machine called Killing In The Name. The couple’s protest caught on and Killing scored 500,000 downloads in the week before Dec. 25 to take the Christmas No. 1 honours, narrowly beating X Factor champ Joe McElderry and his cover of Miley Cyrus’s The Climb.
That protest and the growing popularity of streaming has breathed new life into the Christmas No. 1. Novelty acts such as LadBaby or the punk band can now rush out a single just before Christmas. If they’re lucky it will quickly become a party favourite or social-media phenomenon that doesn’t require huge record sales or massive radio play to move up the charts. More established musicians who once shunned festive songs as low brow, have also rediscovered the power, and financial benefits, of a Christmas hit.
Many stars take it so seriously that they time the release of their entry carefully, taking care not to unveil it too early in December so as not to waste sales or downloads in days that don’t count toward the title. That still can’t overcome a sudden change in popular sentiment. How else to explain that Ms. Carey’s song has never been a Christmas No. 1 in nearly 30 years while Can We Fix It? from the children’s show Bob the Builder has won along with Mr. Blobby, a tune about a giant pink, well, blob?
So who will win this year? The betting favourite is Merry Christmas, followed by LadBaby. But in an odd twist, Mr. Sheeran and Mr. John have appeared in a video promoting LadBaby’s song, which raises money for a food bank. If the sausage roll king wins, he’ll be the first act to log four consecutive Christmas No. 1s in the chart’s 70-year history. That’s something not even the Fab Four managed.
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