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deadcactuswalking · 1 month ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28/12/2024 (Christmas Garbage) [SEASON FINALE]

Well, this is Christmas. And what have you done? Everything aside, this is the episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS each year where Christmas is all done and over with but the chart doesn’t reflect that because of the tracking week including plenty of festive days, this one including the entire streak of Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. You couldn’t even make a top 20 with the songs in the UK Singles Chart top 100 that aren’t Christmas songs… and I don’t even cover all that, I talk about the UK Top 75 for the most part. I suppose, welcome back, “Last Christmas” is #1, let’s keep it brief?

content warning: simply having a wonderful Christmastime... two days late

Rundown

That’s a tenth week for Wham!’s historic track, and the rest of the top five – up to #20, for that matter – consists of just holiday songs, as you’d expect, but there’s little festivity left in me by the 27th… or at least not enough to write passionately about music that, if I abide by all laws of capitalism, I shouldn’t be listening to today. Either way, “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms is at a new peak of #5, then we have “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee at #4, “It Can’t be Christmas” by Tom Grennan at #3 and “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #2. Speaking of new peaks, that’s the case for many a festive hit (at least seemingly), namely “You Make it Feel Like Christmas” by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton at #69, “Deck the Halls” by Nat King Cole at #50, “Run Rudolph Run” by Chuck Berry and Mark Ambor respectively at #47 and #31, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Frank Sinatra at #45, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” by Bruce Springsteen at #41, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Perry Como, the Fontaine Singers, Mitchell Ayres and his orchestra at #40, “Holiday Road” by Kesha at #38, “Carol of the Bells” by John Williams at #37, “Santa Baby” by Laufey at #35, “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” by Nat King Cole at #32. “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano at #17, “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes at #15, “Christmas Magic” by Laufey at #13, “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson and plenty other notable gains, but ones I won’t cover because so much of this episode is already just listing Christmas songs.

As for re-entries, we have “My Only Wish (This Year)” by Britney Spears at #75, “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses at #72 (one of my personal favourites), “Jingle Bells” by Frank Sinatra at #67, “Please Come Home for Christmas” by Eagles at #65, “2000 Miles” by the Pretenders at #63 (might be my very favourite), “Christmas Tree Farm” by Taylor Swift at #61, “Lonely this Christmas” by Mud at #60, “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt (no, not Kim Kardashian, thank goodness) at #59, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by The Jackson 5 at #57, “You’re Christmas to Me” by Sam Ryder at #56, “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” by Frank Sinatra and the B. Swanson Quartet at #54, “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me” by Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande at #52, “Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord” by Boney M. at #51 (again, I have a whole write-up from just a few weeks ago if you want my thoughts on that), “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys at #46, “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby at #42, and some stuff that has never hit the top 75 before until this year. Whether it’s a particularly big Christmas year or just luck of the draw with the tracking week, it’s probably a bit of both, but we do have five Christmas songs to “review” later on.

Now, what left to make room for all of this nonsense? In no particular order, because well, why at this point? It’ll all be back next week, and everything I’ve just listed will be gone bar maybe Wham! and Mariah. Therefore, we bid adieu to the notable dropouts – you know what that means – and they are “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish, “Freezing this Christmas” by Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan, “What is This Feeling?” by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande and just Ari wth “Popular” from the Wicked soundtrack, “Taste” by Sabrina Carpenter, “squabble up”, “luther” with SZA and “tv off” with Lefty Gunplay from Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone, “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” by PAWSA and The Adventures of Stevie V, “People Watching” by Sam Fender, “Lose Control”, “The Door” and “Bad Dreams” by Teddy Swims (yikes for him and Kendrick losing all three of their songs this week), “Dirty” by KSI and Erika Sirola, “Like Him” by Tyler, the Creator featuring Lola Young, “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams, “Ma Meillure Ennemie” by Stromae and Pomme from Arcane, “Too Sweet” by Hozier, “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan (the biggest song of the year in the UK!) and finally, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey. Without Christmas, the top five would be “That’s So True” by Gracie Abrams at #1 (#21), “APT.” by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars at #2 (#28), “Messy” by Lola Young at #3 (#33), “The Days” by Chrystal at #4 (#49), and “Defying Gravity” by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at #5 (#58). Of course, we don’t live in a world without the Christmas songs charting, and hence, we have five new ones to deal with, though it won’t be too much of an ordeal, considering I really don’t intend to “review” the charts in the same way. It’s the day after Boxing Day and we have five Christmas songs, mostly old ones, to discuss, I think I’ll try and focus on the history and trivia part of it more than giving a typical analytical review. May as well spend less time dilly-dallying and get into them.

New Entries

#74 – “Thank God it’s Christmas” – Queen

Produced by Reinhold Mack and Queen

You’d think such a canonically British band as Queen would have their Christmas song injected straight into the veins of the annual holiday hit parade, but this is its highest peak so far… is what I would say if I was an idiot who made constant errors all the time and never kept my data consistent. Or, in other words, if I was the Official Charts Company. This is the first time this song peaked in the top 75 for decades, but this 1984 song peaked at #21 pretty much upon release. It probably isn’t as well-remembered because it’s late-era Queen and doesn’t have a strong hook, but it’s far from a new entry, and I only counted it as such for dramatic purposes to do this bait-and-switch. OCC counts the two chart runs – its original 1984 run and the annual below top 75 returns since 2020 – as separate for whatever reason, but it would be incorrect. Sure, there was a 2011 remaster, but that doesn’t mean anything, the song just sounds better on a technical level, it’s not a remix. I do like how easy and accessible UK charts are but given no company nor website is perfect, you do get little quirks like this that slip by the wayside, especially when it comes to songs originally released physically and now available digitally, but a song like this that peaked quite high and stacked 10+ weeks, returns every year… they should probably keep an eye out for dupes is all I’m saying.

#71 – “Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)” – Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters

Produced by Bing Crosby

Man, Crosby really loves getting that word out, you can practically hear him chuckle once he rhythmically utters “Kalikimaka”. This is actually a new song, never charted before, and is Bing Crosby’s much, MUCH lesser-known Christmas song, written by the late Robert Alexander Anderson, who spent much of his life in Hawaii and wrote many songs in a similar genre to this. Known as “hapa haole”, this is a blend of American ragtime and traditional pop with Hawaiian culture, particularly their signature guitar and ukulele sounds, as well as lyrics sometimes about Hawaii. “Mele Kalikimaka” is a transliteration of Merry Christmas, and sounds quite different thanks to how the Hawaiian language works, but ends up sounding pretty catchy in the song, whether from the effortless crooning of Crosby, or the harmony group The Andrews Sisters who recorded the track with him. With that said, it’s not particularly Hawaiian, apart from the name and vague allusions like palm trees, more finding itself in typical Christmassy tropes. Crosby’s was one of the earliest and most famous recordings of the song as he was a friend of Anderson’s, and sonically, it sounds as you’d expect, with smooth piano and some really low-quality horns blasting in the instrumental breaks. When this first charted in the US around 2020, I knew that we were just introducing forgotten dregs of Christmas past into the canon, and whilst I couldn’t really care less about a new holiday bottom-feeder introduced to the annual lot, we do need to begin questioning if any of this is worth bringing in, right? This is just the streaming playlist algorithm reminding itself after 50 Christmas songs in that Bing Crosby had more tracks on that holiday album, and whilst it’s cool that a semblance of Hawaiian culture is in the mix on a UK chart, I don’t feel like this is the most accurate or even focused way of doing so. Sweet enough song, but not one that I feel will be too well-integrated into the crop unless we have another lucky tracking week situation like this year. Hell, even this year, there are better songs below the top 75 that probably speak to Brits this year a bit more than… this.

#70 – “Christmas Time is Here” – Vince Guaraldi Trio

Produced by Vince Guaraldi

I adore this song. As an instrumental, it’s a chill piece of soft cool jazz that screams warming up for the festive season round a fireplace, and with the haunting children’s choir in the left channel singing of yuletide cheer, it gives you a reminder of what kids will be doing outside in the afternoon in the snow. It’s a lovely little jingle that warms me up even if Peanuts specials aren’t as big here as they are Stateside. In fact, both this and Crosby’s song whip up the image and magic of a very traditional American post-war Christmas rather than anything particularly British, which is probably a sign of the playlists becoming more universal in their appeal and shaking up what Brits will canonically listen to. This comes straight out of an ideal 60s Christmas, of course, as it was written by Guaraldi and the lyrics by executive producer Lee Mendelson for the 1965 TV classic A Charlie Brown Christmas which still gets plenty of play, especially in North America, to this day. The late Guaraldi famously composed the theme tune to the series of specials too, “Linus and Lucy”, a bit of a jazz standard in itself. Mendelson’s lyrics were a rush-job but sound perfect over the shortened-down track, originally a six-minute piece, and it really is gorgeous, deserving of its space as a classic in the US, and whilst I don’t imagine it will become one here – maybe it’s too slow, maybe it’s too disconnected from the UK’s culture – it’s still great that it charted. Much like “Mele Kalikimaka”, this is the first time it’s charted in any capacity, and I really can’t complain. What has charted before, however…

#62 – “O Holy Night” – Céline Dion

Produced by David Foster

“O Holy Night” is a hymn about the nativity scene, and has been recorded by many an artist, including those who you’d think would take it to the charts like John Williams and Mariah Carey, who both showed up for me in the search before Céline Dion’s Disneyfied version that is completely fine if not a slodge to get through. I personally find it difficult to connect with the more religious iconography surrounding Christmas Day, and a melodramatic five-minute adaptation, whilst very Céline Dion, isn’t going to help with that exactly, in fact it takes me further away from resonating with the song. Bizarrely, instead of Mariah, the highest-charting version and until now, only version of this song to chart is by Ladywell Primary School in Scotland who recorded the track in 2012 to raise funds for meningitis research and took it to #39. The #1 that week was “Troublemaker” by Olly Murs. As for the song’s history, it may resonate with Dion because of its importance in French and hence Canadian culture, having been written by French poet Placide Cappeau and set to music by a fellow Frenchman, Adolphe Adam, who actually didn’t grow up religious. The American critic John Sullivan Wright wrote the English lyrics and may have helped its reputation as “Cantique de Noël” as it was known was somewhat derided, especially by Catholic critics, in Cappeau’s native France since its first performance in 1847. The carol has definitely grown on people since, with some of the original criticisms somewhat unfounded, and legends of it bringing peace to battlefields have cemented its place in not just French history but in Canada, who banned the song for a brief period, and the rest of the world. There’s plenty of history to read up about this piece and why it was so controversial at a time, but I’m not a scholar in Christmas carols, and nowadays, there’s an *NSYNC version so I guess it’s all bygones be bygones.

#55 – “Under the Tree” (from That Christmas) – Ed Sheeran

Produced by Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid

That Christmas is an animated Netflix Christmas film that came out earlier this year and is allegedly fine but I cannot personally opine. This piano ballad from Ed Sheeran is the original single attached to it, but I don’t think that’s why Ed Sheeran made a second original Christmas song. His first, “Merry Christmas”, is not only intrinsically linked to another massive pop star’s legacy in Elton John, but also LadBaby and the pandemic, I think he wants and deserves a second attempt at cementing himself in the canon as a solo act, and this is a damn good try because this is brilliant. Sure, it’s going for the typical “alone at Christmas” but Sheeran’s sappy-dog ballads have always appealed to me, especially when he goes into his uniquely frailer register, and the bare piano makes this feel less like a “Lonely this Christmas”-esque dirge and more just honest, perhaps overly, given his ponderings in the second verse about whose arms this person could be in this year. There’s an awkward casualness to the “just letting you know” that clashes with the melodrama and the verses can get quite clumsy in their wordiness, but that’s all very Ed Sheeran, as is the brilliantly clear vocal production and the melody perfectly aligned with certain string inflections once they come in for a gorgeous swell. Sure, you could argue its main conceit is a bit ungrateful that he doesn’t care for any of his presents and just wants that person there, but it’s also so typically soul-bearingly honest and there’s not some inherent sympathy you have to feel for his desperate pleas here. I wish the horns were a bit more organic, but they are very quickly rushed away in the bridge for more Disney synths that wash away outside of a driving pluck and magical rise for that final chorus. This may not work in terms of getting Ed his solo Christmas staple, but it deserves to – it’s one of his most unabashedly Ed Sheeran songs, and as integrated he already is into British culture, this is a damn good way to both send off an imperial run and make sure that at least a few people, including me, pop you on each year.

Conclusion

I don’t deem it necessary to iron out the best and worst of the week given the tone I took in regards to tackling these new entries, but I do deem it necessary to thank the readers as this is our season finale of sorts for 2024 which is the seventh year of doing this, and I’d like to send my gratitude to anyone who even skims it, as it gives purpose to this little hobby of mine. Hey, cost of living crisis, maybe I’ll open a Patreon next year to give it even more purpose. Just kidding, I would never… hahahaha…. Anyway, thank you all for reading this season, which I think counts as Season 6 if I’m not mistaken, and I’m glad we could end it on such a wholesome batch of songs, honestly, and one that reflects a whole lot of typical happenings: Christmas overload, OCC missteps, older songs returning out of nowhere, even a charity single and Ed bloody Sheeran. Maybe next year, they’ll make an AI George Michael do a drill remix and “Last Christmas” will spend even more weeks at #1. The future is upon us. For now, have a happy New Year, I’ll be back with basically the rest of the chart next Friday, and it’ll be 2025. See you then.

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #christmas music #ed sheeran #vince guaraldi #a charlie brown christmas #that christmas #bing crosby #andrew sisters #céline dion

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