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deadcactuswalking · 20 days ago

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Every UK Christmas #1 Ranked & Reviewed

The Official Charts Company – my second favourite national institution behind being miserable – claims that the biggest annual chart race for Christmas number-one started in 1952, and that’s a bit of a retcon. Sure, that’s when what is largely recognised as the predecessor to the modern chart started publishing but realistically, there wasn’t an actual Christmas song on top that week until 1955, and there only became a coherent and fully realised, modernised idea of what the chart is and means years later… kind of, you could argue it will never reach that, but pedanticism be damned, it really started in the 70s. This was when glam rock bands started releasing Christmas singles. Why glam rock bands, you ask? I’d say it’s the most glam rock thing to do, releasing a flashy novelty Christmas single and running up the charts every year, and really, when it comes to iconic Christmas songs in the UK specifically, most of our homegrown ones come from this decade onwards. So does that mean I’m ignoring those pre-Slade? No, I just like proving OCC wrong. The sales on Christmas Day rarely count for the #1 anyway, it’s all fake, nothing’s real, and no one cares. I’m cactus, I write REVIEWING THE CHARTS, a show about the UK Singles Chart, every week, and this is a special episode about the holliest hits, the jolliest jingles, the merriest melodies, and really, the only time people outside of BTS stans care about the charts or still buy singles. This is:

Every UK Christmas #1 Ranked from Worst to Best

content warning: language, UK politics, discussion of sex, death, drugs and tragedy (merry Christmas)

Now, ground rules: I’m basing my list off of OCC’s official list which is copied on Wikipedia and Spotify if you don’t want to use their… questionable site. Secondly, I’m not going to do a full grand review of every song, there’s 72 of the bastards, so this’ll more like a brief rundown of my opinions and what the hit represents – some of these I’ll have nothing to say about, some of these are fantastic pieces of music, and whilst the worst should be obvious, some of where the better songs land could be a bit of a surprise. There’s a whole compost heap of novelty garbage though so prepare for that, and yes, I am fully aware that this will be outdated within weeks, but that’s part of the fun in just how fast the chart moves and okay, I’m coping that all this work is going to be overshadowed by some AI clone of Michael Bublé making a Christmas remix of KSI’s “Thick of It” in a fortnight. Regardless, without further ado, what’s my least favourite Christmas #1 of all time?

…It’s LadBaby. Why wouldn’t it be? I mean, come on.

#72 – “Food Aid” – LadBaby (2022)

#71 – “Sausage Rolls for Everyone” – LadBaby, Ed Sheeran and Elton John (2021)

#70 – “Don’t Stop Me Eatin’” – LadBaby (2020)

#69 – “I Love Sausage Rolls” – LadBaby (2019)

#68 – “We Built This City” – LadBaby (2018)

Okay, I may be a bit biased. After all, I have been writing this blog since 2018 and I’ve had one year – just the one that passed – where LadBaby doesn’t plague the Christmas chart with a one-week wonder, novelty charity song about sausage rolls. He’s dead-set on doing it, and whilst it’s all ostensibly to fight poverty, I’m not convinced it’s actually doing much to help – after all, the government needs to be involved in that and I’m not sure this Nottingham YouTuber duo of Mark and Roxanne Hoyle really have it in them to make a protest song considering how they’ve been dodging The Kunts for all these years… and you know, the time they got the Christmas #1 with a parody of “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”, one of the most insufferable and tone-deaf attempts at charity to ever have hit the charts. LadBaby had a five-year consecutive run at the charts, I’ve reviewed every single one of these on the weekly series, and with every passing year, the songs they derived from got worse, the sausage roll parodies became more of a stretch, the charity felt a whole lot less sincere, and worst of all, they became more insensitive. “Food Aid” and “Sausage Rolls for Everyone” are impressive feats – having a charity single lack that much human compassion is something only Band Aid had done before. And speaking of:

#67 – “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” – Band Aid 20 (2004)

#66 – “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” – Band Aid II (1989)

#65 – “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” – Band Aid (1984)

These are probably worse in every way compared to LadBaby, but listen, I have a personal vendetta to fulfil. This disgusting, neo-colonial pity jam has had three renditions hit #1 – thank God its failure of a 2010s reboot hit #1 a different week – and they’re also in reverse chronological order, largely because the attempts at modernizing what are gross reminders of the past get even more desperate and embarrassing, like the rap verse in the 2004 version. Also, I kind of like the synthpop chimes in the original (the best-selling single of all time bar “Candle in the Wind 1997” [#1, obviously] has to have some appeal) but regardless, this really deserves to be the selection of songs we have at the bottom… and the wonderful thing is, I don’t really have to elaborate further! I’ve written about all of the LadBaby songs at length from 2018 onwards during the Christmas episodes, and in 2022, I had the opportunity to knock out why I hate Band Aid so much too. If you’re really craving a takedown of LadBaby and Band Aid, feel free to read that episode, I’m proud of it. It gets Biblical. But for today, just know that “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” is one of my least favourite songs of all time – maybe I’ll write about the absolute worst one day – and LadBaby… well, maybe in a few years�� time, I’ll have warmed on the guy, he is just a “humble” fellow and his wife making sausage roll songs. The wounds are just too recent for me not to put him at the absolute bottom of the list… and hey, Bob Geldof, if you’re reading, which I know you’re not: Tonight, thank God it’s them, instead of you.

Since I don’t really want to validate these as songs, I will give their respective #2s for that year as an arguably healthier alternative. In 1984, #2 was a song that we’ll see later on, but in 1989, it was “Let’s Party” by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – that in itself is a fascinating deep dive into British novelty – and in 2004, it was Ronan Keating’s duet version of Yusuf Islam’s “Father and Son”, a song I love but not particularly that version. As for the streak of LadBaby #2s… check the backlog of this very blog. Now for a pedophile.

#64 – “Two Little Boys” – Rolf Harris (1969)

Don’t really think I have to explain this one. At least it’s not racist, I guess, but Jesus Christ. I mean, it’s truly inoffensive outside of context, even if a bit rote and boring; at least it’s mixed okay but it’s truly a novelty track in execution despite the fact that the song is real, predates Mr. Harris and is largely about war. It became popular during the 1900s and could be potent in its paralleling of childhood play to the battlefield… if maybe he didn’t spend five years in prison for fucking kids. Separate the art from the artist, sure, but we should have separated this guy from minors. Now for the lesser evil, Simon Cowell.

From 2005 to 2008 and then for a few non-consecutive years afterwards, Cowell’s The X Factor singing competition show had a stronghold on the Christmas #1 and whilst sappy ballads, bad covers and tired gimmicks had all hit the top of the Christmas tree before, there was something so disposable about these covers, mostly at a miserable pace and produced to be the most milquetoast pieces of music on any given chart week. They don’t vary wildly in quality, or even sonically, so once again, we have a bit of a one-fell-swoop situation. I can’t even get mad at the singers, they’re new, they were exploited by the show and just wanted a chance at fame, with most failing to really capture the country’s attention past their 15 minutes and that makes me genuinely sad for these guys, many of which were forgotten soon after they competed on the show. How many of the royalties they took home is also into question considering the skeevy Sycopath in charge of their careers, but I hope they made the most out of it by doing tons of coke and playing blackjack with hookers. This’ll be our last batch before I start giving the songs actually fair shakes, so let’s run through with a small opinion and once again, the Christmas #2 that year to give a healthy alternative:

#63 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

No, not you yet, Blobbers, you’ll have your turn.

#63 – “Skyscraper” – Sam Bailey (2013)

I don’t even like the original, man. Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” was #2, so… yikes.

#62 – “Hallelujah” – Alexandra Burke (2008)

What may get lost in all the cover versions is that there’s something truly undeniable and powerful about Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (#36, 2008). Speaking of the truly undeniable, this is oversung slop, and the late Jeff Buckley’s version hit #2 in protest.

#61 – “When We Collide” – Matt Cardle (2010)

I genuinely love the original version by Biffy Clyro, and he was pretty cool and understanding about how people will always prefer “Many of Horror” (#8, 2010) to his renamed, recycled rendition. One thing about a lot of these covers people neglect is how close some of them were to the original release, it felt like piggybacking and especially with this version, which to me, just saps the soul of the original. It’s competent but this is probably my favourite original song when it comes to these covers, so there’s an irrational distaste I have, even if sonically, I think I prefer it to other winners’ singles. Rihanna’s “What’s My Name?” featuring BBL Drizzy was #2.

#60 – “When You Believe” – Leon Jackson (2007)

This is a complete snore. There’s a lot to dig into when it comes to these singing competition shows, how the contestants were treated and how much of a media phenomenon they became, but consuming that sheer amount of 2000s cringe would kill me so leave it to some twink video essayist. Katie Melua’s virtual duet version of “What a Wonderful World” with Eva Cassidy, itself a strange novelty, was #2.

#59 – “A Moment Like This” – Leona Lewis (2006)

This is a cover of another singing competition-winning track from stateside, that being Kelly Clarkson on American Idol, and that’s just… really singing the quiet part out loud, isn’t it? Take That’s “Patience” was #2.

#58 – “Something I Need” – Ben Haenow (2014)

The mixing’s strange on this one, but I actually really like his voice and heard some good stuff from him back in 2015 so I bumped this one a bit higher. It also made use of the natural melodrama for a good stomp-clap rock tune so there’s some actual grit to this one… barely, but hey, it’s the little things. Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk!” featuring Bruno Mars was #2.

#57 – “That’s My Goal” – Shayne Ward (2005)

I’ll give this one props: it was the first winners’ single to hit #1 and it’s pretty easily the best. It’s still a soppy bore sung boringly, but it’s an original song – one he didn’t write, sure, but not a butchering of a better version, and it’s probably one of the least oversung and melodramatic. It’s catchy as all Hell and I’m even slightly nostalgic for it, so I’ll give it considerable praise for just being a step above the rest of its shoddy competition. Nizlopi’s “JCB Song”, a personal favourite of mine, was #2. Unfortunately, though these three plagues on the Christmas chart are the most prevalent, there’s still a series of saccharine charity bullshit from the 2010s that needs to be covered here, and it’s a bit tricky to discuss in general because there is, either hypothetically, in practice or both, a great outcome to the single’s releases, and there’s less publicised controversy than Band Aid and LadBaby, but they still don’t form particularly good musical experiences, in fact, most of them are still awful, and this three aren’t any different.

#56 – “Wherever You Are” – Military Wives featuring Gareth Malone (2011)

Choirmaster Gareth Malone, for his BBC television series, accumulated a choir of women who were wives and girlfriends of military personnel serving abroad, trained them to sing and release this single with both his name and the poppy plastered over it. Remembrance Day and the romanticisation of war by British institutions that enforces it has always given me an indescribable ick that no matter of choral vapidity will save, and the treatment of this single as simultaneously a serious and heartwarming contender for showing the UK’s appreciation of its soldiers sent to die in unnecessary wars, but also a novelty from a television show that had to be campaigned for to get a sole week at the top, really cements that – it may actually be the anecdote I use to express my issues with the commemoration from now on. Also, it does beg the question: Remembrance Day is in November, if you really cared about the cause, wouldn’t you make the timeline align at least?

#55 – “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” – The Justice Collective (2012)

This is neither nor the time nor place to discuss either this original song, its main conceit in the title and how powerful it truly is, its religious connections, its backstory regarding its co-writer dying during its creation and its rich history of covers, or the tragedy of the Hillsborough disaster, in which due to negligence, 94 football fans died at a 1989 match’s crowd crush. It is to this day a heavy and sensitive topic, particularly in Liverpool, and I am far from an expert on the details to this case or even the song, which I suppose should be my forte but it feels way out of my depth to comment that much further. I’d love to read an essay or any kind of deep-dive one day about why this song in particular relates to football fans and why it was chosen because whilst I can assume a lot of thematic links, I simply cannot be an authority on this subject, and I shouldn’t be taken as an authority on any of this but even with research, it is plunging me into history and culture I don’t think is fit for me to comment on. For a summary of this release, it is another terrible celebrity all-star cover, this particular disaster’s Band Aid, and it is of little value sonically when compared to the Hollies’ brilliant 1969 rendition (#3) with Sir Elton John on piano. I do, however, respect that this blossomed from genuine disappointment and rage towards a series of domestic UK travesties – the idea for it emerged from a concert against The Sun newspaper during the News International trial, again, that is a huge can of worms – as well as a shared brotherhood that in other renditions, has made for powerful music. It still reeks of self-serving achievement given the all-star cast and the novelty factor, but this is the constant dichotomy of these kind of charity records, one which I covered in-depth in the aforementioned LadBaby episode.

#54 – “A Bridge Over You” – The Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir (2015)

Another, more indirect product of Gareth Malone, this one’s difficult to find a reason to dislike on a more principled basis other than my dislike for how the music is overly sentimental, kind of lazy in its arrangement, and produced in a muddy, distracting way that at its best emphasises the choir over their backing and at worst forms them into an amorphous blob with guitars and particularly rough drums that don’t really mesh. The campaign seems more genuine, started by a junior doctor to raise money for the constantly-undermined National Health Service of this country, but then again, I fail to see how the UK buying this single guarantees government-provided benefits or rids the plague of privatisation, it – like all novelty charity records – serves in some way to deflect, even if this is less obviously so, hence why it’s the highest entry. The government supported it by lifting tax, but had little involvement in the song, and there are no big names here in what was initially released independently in 2013, but what may soil it is the involvement of an NHS communications manager Joe Blunden, which at least to me raises some genuine concerns about how he could better channel these issues and the depressing reality that this is probably the best way he could do so. Also, I like the organs and I suppose mashing up “A Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel (#1, 1970) with Coldplay’s “Fix You” (#4, 2005) is smoother here than it is tacky, and I’m just glad we can finally move onto some genuinely fun and interesting songs and trends, that I don’t have to mumble and grumble through.

#53 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

What charity did you raise funds for? Blobsted? Blobbyline? The Blobby Heart Foundation? Get out of here. Now, with that out of the way, here is what may be my first hot take of the list.

#53 – “Lonely this Christmas” – Mud (1974)

One major part of my rationale for this list will be my memories watching Christmas music videos on those UK music channels that barely exist anymore, but I imagine still get most of their traction and viewers – if any at all – at Christmas time, wherein they can act as a holiday playlist, though with five minutes of ads after three songs and a not particularly varied selection. At least a decade ago, the presentation of these channels was something worth mentioning, one I remember being Noddy Holder – who we’ll get to – presenting his favourite Christmas singles and the effort, whilst not immense, was something, definitely more than you’ll get on anything more algorithmic nowadays. The worst part, of course, of a Christmas music video compilation will be the slow, boring performance videos of ballads, and this particular one by glam rock band Mud has always rubbed me the wrong way. The tacky festive affects and meek spoken word section are the icing on a really gross cake, one that serves as a pastiche of Elvis Presley, basically a note-for-note impression and therefore a mockery of the art of just making a damn good Christmas song, which Elvis, for all the fair criticisms, had done and will appear in this list. This is a (seemingly) sincerely longing and borderline begging song for a lover to return for Christmas, and it does so little to enforce the parodic elements that it becomes a painful slog with no reason to hear it: it’s not funny, it’s not sincere and honestly, it’s not even well-performed. I might actually hate listening to it more than the X Factor stuff.

#52 – “Long Haired Lover from Liverpool” – Donny Osmond (1972)

No, I think I’ll decline on the offer of you being my long-haired lover from Liverpool, Jimmy. Firstly, you’re from California, secondly, you’re nine years old, thirdly, your hair isn’t even long. Jokes aside, I’ve always found this one mostly just inappropriate. Sonically, it’s chintzy but fine, I’m just bothered by Little Jimmy Osmond talking about being a puppet for his “sunshine daisy from LA” who makes all the other flowers cry from her beauty. Even without the fact that he’s a child, it seems like the roles are a bit reversed in the song and like a weird choice for him to sing, just opportunistically chosen to capitalise on how popular and “cute” the Osmonds were at this point in time.

#51 – “Mad World” (2003) – Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules

The washed-up, sugarcoated, whitened cover of a good, more interesting song has always been a thing, but this feels like the most immediate precursor to its most recent manifestation: the stripped-back piano cover by a relative nobody of a recognisable song to advertise some kind of product. Anyone who has watched British television adverts probably has an idea of what I mean, and it’s got to be a thing at least elsewhere in the Anglosphere. Hell, Calum Scott’s “Dancing on My Own” (#2, 2016) is a great example, I’m sure that’s recent enough for people to remember. The deal with this one is that Andrews composed the music for the film Donnie Darko in 2001, and its cult success led to a DVD release and two years later, this cover of the Tears for Fears track from 1983 (#3) with vocals from Jules hit #1. It’s stripped back and minimal, but suffers largely from the unsubtle and cumbersome vocal performance – I have no idea if this gains some extra potency in the context of the film but as a standalone single, it exacerbates the flaws of the song’s writing by stripping some of its layers and other than the honest performance, does little to cover it or preferably, find value in another aspect of the song – Demi Lovato took a similarly stripped down approach in her 2021 rendition but the fuzzier cinematics of the second half are a great build-up and Lovato’s vocals impress me much more than Jules, so it’s not the “overly serious piano version” trend just being written off as inherently bad here. It’s just not my particular favourite version of the song, and I’m glad that we’ve finally gotten around to one where my only problem is that the actual audio recording itself is one I find mediocre. Speaking of…

#50 – “I Love You” – Cliff Richard and the Shadows (1960)

A lot of the much, much older songs, especially those pre-Beatles, were new to me but I could find charm in them, a delightful energy or at the very least, a sweet brevity. Cliff’s “I Love You” is a strikingly basic and boring composition that, at two minutes, feels extensively longer thanks to the draining void of non-personality that is our lead vocalist, a constant fixture of the charts for a few decades and who we will be seeing again.

#49 – “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma” – St Winifred’s School Choir (1980)

God, I hate children’s choirs. This has had practically no unironic staying power, but prevented the actually resonant and annually played “Stop the Cavalry” by Jona Lewie (#3, 1980-1) from hitting its peak, and then this school choir chiming about their old nan would be replaced by the then-recently shot dead John Lennon. Imagine there’s no grandma, it’s easy if you try.

#48 – “What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?” – Emile Ford and the Checkmates (1959)

I feel a bit bad placing this so low because the late Emile Ford, a Saint Lucian singer, sounded like a fine enough guy who made some genuinely important steps in sound engineering, and it is impressive to have such a big hit with your debut track without much name recognition – I’m sure Ford didn’t mind that despite not having the lasting recognisability other singers from the 50s have, he could still be in the history books for technically bagging a “Christmas number one”, though before it really mattered. It is just the song itself, particularly its lyrics, are dated and uncomfortable with their approach to flirting with women, and this is likely because it comes from a 1916 Broadway play, so I assume it makes more sense within that. Regardless, it’s definitely more successful and known as a standalone hit by Emile Ford, and it’s not a particularly good one at that.

#47 – “Mistletoe and Wine” – Cliff Richard (1988)

This was the rare occasion of a Christmas #1 to be announced after the day itself, I’m pretty sure the only one but there’s no 100% way to check that. It was announced a day late on Boxing Day because Christmas Day fell on the Sunday, the day charts would be revealed in that time, and being late enough to respect tradition – despite a Christmas chart being fully acceptable Christmas programming to me – whilst also late enough to leap over the point of why anyone cares about what you’re releasing and promoting in the first place… feels pretty representative of anyone still listening to Sir Cliff Richard in 1988.

#46 – “Saviour’s Day” – Cliff Richard (1990)

Or 1990, for that matter. This one’s actually worse, I just wanted to get the joke off.

#45 – “Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord” – Boney M. (1978)

Disco group Boney M. deliver a bit of a medley here, an original song tacked onto a song we will see in like five minutes. There are very few explicitly religious songs on this list despite the theme of Christmas, and this is mostly for the best within the context of this list as a lot of religious content will fail to resonate with me, especially something this flatly commercialised. A disco nativity scene is a fun novelty idea for a satire, maybe, but played completely straight, it’s just overly blatant and I don’t find much fun in it. It’s important to note that the forward slash here references the fact that it is a mashup, not two separate songs, which is not the case for…

#44 – “Mull of Kintyre” / “Girls’ School” – Wings (1977)

…okay, Paul. I have very little to say about this snooze of a release so I should take the opportunity to explain double A-sides, which seem like quite an outdated concept now but were quite common when physical singles were the main form of consumption. We’ll see one of the first important double A-sides later on, also involving the Beatles coincidentally, but the technique has existed since at least 1949 and all that it means is there is no designated B-side. Rather, both tracks on the record could be potential hits, no one side should be prioritised over the other. There are four of these in our list of Christmas #1s, and I’ll be counting them all as one entry.

#43 – “Moon River” – Danny Williams (1961)

I’ve never really been a fan of “Moon River” as a song, possibly because I’ve never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s a sweet song, but a slow one that would require a lot from its performer to ultimately sell me on, and during 1961, so many different versions of the Henry Mancini-written track (#44, 1962) were released at pretty much the same time, very few of them were going to shake up the popular arrangement, and hence, we’re left with Danny Williams who is… fine? The problem here is that the song fails to have that floaty immersion that comes with its nostalgia, and the recording feels weirdly heavy for what should be easy listening. Hell, if anything, that main choral vocal sounds haunting against the strings and Williams takes up so much of the mix, it’s really a rough two and a half minutes. Williams was sometimes called Britain’s answer to Johnny Mathis and we will see him very soon with his awkward cover track.

#42 – “Answer Me” – Frankie Laine (1953)

Much like “Moon River”, there was heavy competition on the charts in regards to what version of this particular song would chart the highest, with the two that really went head-to-head being Frankie Laine and David Whitfield, a real US versus UK competition for the chart-topper and ultimately, both went #1, though the song had to be modified for its religious lyrics because, hilariously, something this inoffensive and dull was banned by the BBC.

#41 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

No, Mr Blobby, not the Big Blobby Corporation. Please leave, sir.

#41 – “Stay Another Day” – East 17 (1994)

This is an interesting one, and I think boy band East 17 are nearly synonymous now with this single rather than any of their other releases, which really shows you how the Christmas canon can create classics and crush catalogues. For a while, I have been somewhat captivated by this song, somehow? There is a resonance to the song’s content, one often misinterpreted as a breakup song but actually about member Tony Mortimer’s brother committing suicide. Definitely written to possess a double meaning, however, the delivery of it is sold so sincerely in spite of the rougher nasal textures of the lead vocal take that it adds that detail of personal imperfection and helplessness in preventing that death from happening. The problem is the schmaltz of the arrangement (at least until the climax) and how tedious the chorus can be turn it into as much of a bore as it could potentially demonstrate the excruciating experience of losing a loved one and having nothing to do about it but feel guilt for how you could have helped… which is all cheapened anyway by the sleigh bells added lucratively for the Christmas market. There is something to a predominantly drumless track with the constant, echoed “Stay now…” mantra but I don’t think I’m exactly there yet. Check back in five months, and I’ll have been able to separate it from years of it being a downer on the Christmas music channels, it might genuinely be in my top 10 by then because it’s this close to clicking. For now… it doesn’t reach me like it should.

#40 – “Mary’s Boy Child” – Harry Belafonte (1957)

A good performance from a legendary singer and man I really respect cannot make “Mary’s Boy Child” work for me, it’s still a remarkably dull song about Jesus. This does not take away from Belafonte’s appearance on The Muppet Show, which is kino.

#39 – “Let’s Have Another Party” – Winifred Atwell (1954)

Pianist Atwell performed this little ragtime medley of several tunes and became the first black artist to ever hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart. She’s the only female instrumentalist to have ever done so. There is probably something to be said about how her voice is silent here, and she performs through the piano, and what that could have meant in the 50s, but at the end of the day, it’s a tremendous feat for what is essentially a novelty medley, one that I don’t really get the appeal of today which should be expected. The version on streaming combines the first part on the A-side with the B-side, which is simply a second part, a continuance to the medley, so you could argue that this is a double A-side in nature too. The second half is a bit slower and easier to listen to, but both sides remind me of Cooking Mama for the Nintendo DS and the first struck me as some goofy Looney Tunes bullshit amidst all the easy listening at the start of the list. There is a really weird surf guitar line in the second part that I can only describe as a hilariously unnecessary noise.

#38 – “When a Child is Born (Soleado)” – Johnny Mathis (1976)

“Soleado” is a composition by Italian musician Ciro Dammicco, with American singer Johnny Mathis recording an English version that isn’t explicitly making reference to Christmas but is pretty blatantly about the birth of Christ. It’s mostly a sentimental ballad but it stands out particularly because of a confusing spoken-word piece in the bridge where he decides to question what race Jesus is and if we’ll really ever know: “Waiting for one child – black, white, yellow, no one knows”. I understand that this is probably an attempt at saying Jesus is all races or of ambiguous race so that he will heal suffering regardless of the believers’ ethnicity, but it is still ridiculous to apply 1970s attitudes of race to a historical figure and also, remarkably out of place in this song.

#37 – “Rockabye” – Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie (2016)

This is not a Christmas song, this is “Rockabye” by Clean Bandit and Sean Paul. Come on, it’s tropical house! The song was written by Ina Wroldsen who was swapped out for Anne-Marie at the last minute, despite the band’s insistence on Wroldsen as the vocalist. You can figure this out without searching anything because when Sean Paul shouts Anne-Marie out on the intro, it is clearly punched in from a different take and has an audibly different mix. Yup. Next.

#36 – “Save Your Love” – Reneé and Renato (1982)

This is a song performed by a duo of Hilary Lester (“Reneé”) and Renato Pagliari. “Reneé” did not even appear in the video, she was replaced with a model, and that makes the trivia that it’s supposedly the first fully independent single to reach #1 a bit sourer of a fun fact. It was written behind the guy behind a TV robot called “Metal Mickey”, so that’s about how seriously I’m taking this bilingual schmaltz.

#35 – “Somethin’ Stupid” – Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman (2001)

Most famously sung by Frank and Nancy Sinatra in 1967 (#1), this version by Robbie Williams who, if you don’t know and you’re reading a UK chart blog, I’m slightly confused, alongside Australian actress Nicole Kidman, is completely fine. The orchestra could be better implemented or not included at all, because the more lowkey Latin flavour to the duet is pretty cute, but that’s about all I have to say, it’s not really tied to Christmas or the grand scheme of music history in any way.

#34 – “Here in My Heart” – Al Martino (1952)

Well, here we have it: one of the most important songs in British pop music history, purely because it was the first single to ever hit #1 on what is largely considered the predecessor to the modern UK Singles Chart. The late Al Martino himself is American and was very successful stateside, so I’m not sure how much he would have cared exactly, but this performance is intense, very unsubtly so, and that drama of the chorus is something to behold… but it also really relegates all of its energy to that spot. Overall, it’s not the most interesting of songs to start the journey with but considering how convincingly dramatic it is, it’s a great way to begin any listening of UK #1s. Not only does this song commence the first ever singles chart, it’s the first Christmas #1 and for my sake, the first song on this list that I actually kind of like, meaning that yes, a good 36 of these were at least decent songs. I’m probably just being generous but even then, this really wasn’t as gruelling as it could have been.

#33 – “Earth Song” – Michael Jackson (1995)

It only comes to me now that I've pretty much never had to talk about Michael Jackson in-depth for my entire time writing this blog, and I'm not exactly starting now given that this is a series of mostly brief rundowns, and MJ only appears this once. I should say that whilst the song is somewhat enjoyable and I respect it to some degree, it is still in the awkward, self-serving call to action as John Lennon's “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” (#2, 1980). I loathe that song, but I can still appreciate the self-reflective angle that it tries to go for, which is lost by Michael Jackson in his screams to pay attention to the natural world’s suffering thanks to the sheer immensity and grandiose gospel build-up that means the song perpetually looks outwards, potentially not even forwards. This is alongside a vocal performance from MJ that to me is really hard to listen to – in fact, this whole six-minute adventure, and its powerful music video, is just... difficult to grapple with for me and the more I think about it, that might be the best way to call attention to the injustices of the world. I still can't listen to the song and enjoy it fully, but there are three things I love here that allow its higher placement: the key change, Guy Pratt’s bass in the second half and of course, the strained hook of cathartic “woo!”s at the tail-end.

#32 – “Green, Green Grass of Home” – Tom Jones (1966)

1966 feels a bit late for this kind of song but you have to remember that the charts aren’t nicely split into before and after certain artists, songs or events – trends bleed in and out all the time. Regardless of when it hit #1, it feels a bit pre-destined to. It’s a pleasant enough cover of a song that had been big in the US the year prior, and Tom Jones, impressed with Jerry Lee Lewis’ version, gave it a try. It’s more impressive that Jones is still a relatively active and recognisable figure in British pop music after all this time. I remember his most recent album even gathering some critical appraisal.

#31 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

Sigh. I own this on vinyl.

#30 – “Goodbye” – Spice Girls (1998)

In the mid-90s, girl group phenomenon the Spice Girls had three consecutive Christmas #1s with slower, more sentimental tracks, which makes sense, and I actually have them in reverse chronological order here, because they got worse every year, though you’ll see I actually like the other two quite a lot. This one was reworked to be about Geri Halliwell leaving the group, and it sounds as exhausted as the girls were at this point, this is a great soundtrack to running out of steam. Oh, and ladies and gentlemen, here’s Conway Twitty:

#29 – “It’s Only Make Believe” – Conway Twitty (1958)

This was then-unknown Conway Twitty’s first real hit, and though not really a country song, more of a slowed-down rock ballad with some doo-wop to it, I get why he crossed over and I also kind of get this one. Late in his life, my dad had a thing for old, sad country songs and this hits what I imagine is the spot those tracks hit for him, it’s alright.

#28 – “I Have a Dream” / “Seasons in the Sun” – Westlife (1999)

Irish boy band Westlife are an act I almost expected to show up more than once here, so it’s just my luck in predictions that they actually do have two songs but only show up once. These two songs are quite syrupy renditions of older tracks with real cheap synth affects, especially in the first song, but are actually inoffensive and have a little 90s cheese charm to them. The synths in their version of ABBA’s “I Have a Dream” (#2, 1979) aren’t too far from Mario Kart 64 and coincidentally, my dad really loved “Seasons in the Sun”, originally a #1 hit for Terry Jacks in 1973. I know that it’s often considered a historically bad pop song, but I’ve always thought the structure was pretty sweet and this Westlife version is particularly funny because when they sing “it’s hard to die”, a funny echo effect means you hear “die…” fade out for the rest of the measure, which like “Stay Another Day”, is an oddly morbid moment for this boy band schlock.

#27 / #26 – “Bohemian Rhapsody” – Queen (1975, 1991)

It’s fine. Bit slow to start. Something about doing the fandango, killing a man. Freddie Mercury was really a bisexual Pooh Shiesty if you think about it. This is the only song to have the same recording hit #1 on Christmas twice though, the second, after Freddie had died, was a double A-side paired with the boring trite ballad “These Are the Days of Our Lives” which I’m sorry, is just insufferable. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is fine enough and I respect its ambition, even if overstated given what advances in music had already been made by the mid-70s, but that garbage actually takes it down further. I’m sure it was potent when the man had just passed but “Days of Our Lives” is some soppy adult contemporary bullshit compositionally, it feels as long as two Bohemian Rhapsodies, and neither are the Muppets version. Enough has been said over the years about how “Bohemian Rhapsody” stretched what could be considered a hit single, and the impact it has had on music videos, but this is not a discussion of the visual history of pop music, and I’m not one to ignore how progressive and interesting acts big as the Beatles (or the Beatles themselves, who we will get to in due time) had made pop rock long before Queen… this is a ranking of Christmas songs according to my own taste and in my opinion, this is simply a cool song tied temporarily, but integrally for this blog, to a shit one, and there are dozens of tracks that say more about either themselves, the music industry, the country that took it to #1 or the festive season as a whole.

#25 – “I Feel Fine” – The Beatles (1964)

Before the Spice Girls came the Spice Boys, the Liverpudlians who notched three consecutive Christmas #1s in the mid-60s and a fourth one afterwards, with this being our first one to cover and as you can tell, my personal least favourite. It’s difficult to say that the Beatles have any singles that aren’t iconic, let alone #1 hits, but I doubt that these singles, apart from one which we’ll discuss way later on, are in that top 10. “I Feel Fine” is compositionally fairly similar to songs I prefer from them we’ll see later, but it’s much less interesting in comparison to those thanks to being a tad undercooked. Like a lot of early Beatles, it’s a very simple song but the lack of a really impassioned vocal performance or strong enough hook to counter the chorus just leaves it sounding a tad incomplete. I do like hearing an early example of guitar feedback in pop music, though.

#24 – “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” – Pink Floyd (1979)

What a great, charming Christmas single, right? “Another Brick in the Wall”? Part of why this is so low actually originates from how it fails to be a Christmas single, or really a single overall, and that it never intended to be. This is a good song, but one born from contempt for how lead lyricist Roger Waters was taught as a child and his experience with the education system, featuring a school choir that would ironically not be the same choir hitting #1 on Christmas the year after. Even elements of its murky sound are born from guitarist David Gilmour's contempt for disco but ultimately open-minded attempt for them to embody elements of it into their sound thanks to their producer Bob Ezrin. It feels really weird to place this high on a list when the idea of it hitting #1 at Christmas isn't just not part of the appeal and the story, but directly opposed to both and not in such a radical way that it acts as protest - it's still a disco song with a children's choir by one of the biggest rock bands on Earth. Speaking of, i'm also torn on the song itself – that guitar solo is incredible but as an edited-down “part two” single, it's incomplete by design, and doesn't function as a standalone piece as well as it should. Also, God, I hate children’s choir.

#23 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

We don’t need no Blobbyvision. We don’t need no Blob control.

#23 – “Perfect” – Ed Sheeran (2017)

Well, I do suppose this fits, it just feels a bit too modern for this list, like “Rockabye”, and not having any direct Christmas references doesn’t help. I will say that I find this a perfectly sweet, charming song in its original form and it’s largely bogged down on this list because of versions that weren’t officially credited by the Official Charts Company that week but definitely contributed to the song’s success, those being the overblown duets with Beyoncé and Andrea Bocelli.

#22 – “I Will Always Love You” – Whitney Houston (1992)

Many Christmas #1s that aren’t explicitly related to the holiday season still have the air of December surrounding them in some way, whether it be slight musical details like in “Stay Another Day”, a wintry music video and cover art like “Perfect”, or even just the novelty factor of it ever hitting #1 like “Another Brick in the Wall”, “Mad World”, “Let’s Have Another Party” and many others we’ve seen and will see later. “I Will Always Love You”, however, was a US-born phenomenon, where this trophy barely matters, and the massive, all-encompassing belt of a song is predestined to be huge. I’m not too big on what is a generally good song because I have to be in the mood for it but it obviously works and never needed any holiday sentiment or novelty factor. Like “Earth Song” which, to be fair, even MJ had to consciously pull on heartstrings to get himself to the top, this is just too big to ignore and unlike “Earth Song”, it’s a listenable length.

#21 – “Return to Sender” – Elvis Presley (1962)

Looking at this list chronologically, this is just about where the idea of what we now see as modern pop and rock music emerges, primarily because of Elvis himself, who found this song a diamond in the rough for his comeback film Girls! Girls! Girls!, the other material for which he found quite dull to record. Despite having nothing to do with Christmas at all, the horns and jaunty rhythm definitely sound like it, and it’s great to hear such a youthful Elvis performance, but other than that, it is pretty simple and non-descript. The first Christmas #1 on the Irish charts, given the theme of returning love letters, you could even see this as a predecessor to a certain other Christmas song much later down the line.

#20 – “Merry Christmas Everyone” – Shakin’ Stevens (1985)

Sure, this is schmaltz, but undeniable schmaltz, and nostalgia may blind me here but I can’t imagine disliking this song for any reason other than it being a tad too long given it’s aping 50s and 60s rock and roll that wouldn’t let it drag on further than it does. Otherwise, sure, it’s a list of clichés, but it’s delivered with such a childlike grin I can’t help but admit Shakin’ Stevens has me on this one. I know, I know, higher than the Beatles.

#19 – “Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)” – Benny Hill (1971)

I know, I know, the takes keep getting worse. Listen, this won an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, I’m not joking. Prominent comedian Benny Hill released this ribald novelty single to great success in 1971, and yes, there are more sex jokes than a 2000s teen comedy, but it goes to such weird and uncomfortable places with its food-related innuendo that you have to admire how committed Hill is to the bit. The instrumental’s chugging military percussion, string swell and choral refrain also let the stakes get bizarrely high, to the point where Ernie is murdered in a duel with a bread delivery man, and his ghost haunts his wife. The bridge wherein the song basically just comes to a drumless halt, and Hill fills in that void by delivering possibly the worst obituary ever spoken, always gets me, in part because of how stupid the name Ernie is. The first line in the bridge is “Ernie was only 52, he didn’t want to die” and the next line about him delivering milk in Heaven just barely doesn’t make Hill crack up trying to deliver it. Its style and structure is a send-up of old cowboy-story songs from the 50s and 60s, particularly ones with stories of death and consisting largely of spoken-word sections; it immediately reminded me of John Leyton’s death disc “Johnny Remember Me”, similarly about a haunting, that hit #1 in 1961. That is one of my personal favourites #1s ever, so it should be of no surprise that this, despite its content, won me over.

#18 – “Merry Xmas Everybody” – Slade (1973)

For all intents and purposes, this is the Christmas #1. It kickstarted the competitive release of Christmas songs by pop acts, it’s the third song chronologically on this list to be actually about Christmas and the first in over a decade, and even then, it references the “old songs” being the best, defining how this list is constantly looking backwards, much like Britain as a whole. It’s also funny that despite that reference, this is absolutely the first song on this list to remain as part of the semi-official Christmas canon that returns to the chart annually. Overthinking this staple of a song seems borderline blasphemous, even if it’s so basic and laddish that it can be a bit of a slog, but glam rock band Slade’s lead vocalist Noddy Holder screaming in declaration that it’s “CHRIIIIISSTMAAAAASS” may be synonymous with the British holiday experience, or at least once was. The trend of Christmas songs returning to the chart each year started with this song being reissued in the 1980s, which makes sense considering how big parts of this song sound, particularly that 60s rock and roll guitar (very back in style in that decade), and the layered group vocal of the chorus. It’s stupid, it’s worse than its closest competitor from Wizzard that year, “I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday” (#4, 1973-4), but it’s still such an inescapable classic to this day. It may be the first and last Christmas song I’ve ever heard and will hear, it really is that embedded into UK culture. Thankfully, though, we’re able to keep it relatively short with the next few entries.

#17 – “Can We Fix It?” – Bob the Builder (2000)

I may prefer Bob’s construction-themed re-write of “Mambo No. 5” (the 9/11 #1 – I’m not joking), but novelty aside, the 2-step rhythm helps this stand out. This clears the fucking Tweenies, those creepy Teletubbies and especially that narc bitch Fireman Sam.

#16 – “I Hear You Knocking” – Dave Edmunds (1970)

Originally recorded in Smiley Lewis in 1955, “I Hear You Knocking” makes absolutely zero sense as a Christmas single, in fact “I hear you knocking but you can’t come in” may be the antithesis of nice, warm family time. The conclusion of a long trend of blues songs using similar language, this bitter track was reinterpreted into a borderline experimental blues rock jam by Welshman Dave Edmunds after finding out that the song he wanted to cover was already taken. He heard Lewis’ recording, realised the backing beat was identical, and recorded this distorted, nasal slice of vengeance over it, with mechanical, scraping drums – especially in the right channel for whatever reason – and a layering of droopy guitars that strip the song back considerably but add a unique character through Edmunds, who sounds pridefully pissed off, but still takes time in the break to ad-lib some of his favourite rock & roll pioneers and R&B stars of the 50s, all the way back in the mix too. As a whole piece, it’s really simple and casual as a blues stomper but not only is that refrain insanely catchy, but combine it with that overly loud crashing cymbal splitting the mix, Edmunds’ whooping and “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed”-sounding guitars and it goes relentlessly hard. A fantastic song, one that John Lennon famously insisted on in interviews, including the last one he ever did, but perhaps not a merry jingle and more of a pub pleaser.

#15 – “Sound of the Underground” – Girls Aloud (2002)

This has been talked to death already like many other songs here, but there really is a loveable appeal to “Sound of the Underground”, combing that slick surf guitar with a drum and bass rumble to make something that popular music was immediately familiar with, but the manufactured pop music regime that pumped out boy band and girl group hits would have otherwise passed on immediately if it weren’t just that sticky of a hook. Technically, however, this would be the first instance of reality television plaguing the Christmas chart, as the top three that year, including Girls Aloud, was dominated by Popstars contestants – at least in this case the song was great, but for the purpose of this particular list, an awkward legacy to hold.

#14 – “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” – Johnnie Ray (1956)

This loveably nonchalant song was first written in 1952 by two prisoners in Tennessee, with rock and roll precursor and 50s teen sensation Johnnie Ray performing its best-known rendition. Apparently, he didn’t even like the song, but you’d never know, and this has everything I love about traditional pop and R&B: a gimmicky lead hook with the fuzzy whistling, a basic but sticky refrain, a melodrama leading to dangerous levels of oversinging that clips and distorts slightly in the mix. If it were less of a moaner lyrically, it could probably be higher, but he really sells the despair of being a prisoner and how society treats those who have broken the law, even for petty crimes. The group doo-wop backing vocals act as looming over Ray in a really melancholy track, I do recommend checking this out because it may be the least famous of the Christmas #1s overall, and deserves a lot more attention.

#13 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

OCC’s playlist of Christmas #1s is not perfect by any means but it does contain, in some capacity, every single entry to hit #1 on Christmas, except for two. The first is the 1989 re-recording of “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”, though two other versions of the song are included for the original and 2000s revival, so the song is still very much there. The second, and the only song completely, thoroughly excluded, entirely non-present, is this one. “Mr Blobby” by Mr Blobby. OCC makes no reference to this exclusion on Spotify, stating that it contains all the winners from 1952 to now, except it just doesn’t. The official page for the Christmas #1 on the Official Charts Company website does not mention the Blobster in its text and silently, probably hesitantly includes him in the list table for historical purposes, without noting that their “complete” playlist of “every” number-one denies our Blobby boy his rightful position as a chart record-holder. What may hurt the most is that there is one tacit acknowledgement of Blobby in that article: OCC mentions that “cartoon characters”, plural, have held the top spot, meaning that they either acknowledge Blobby as a cartoon alongside Bob, which is a fair enough assessment considering his design and animated appearances, or they’re referring to a Claymation music video we’ll discuss later on, which would be… potentially accurate but bizarrely insensitive, much like the exclusion of Blobberson from a conversation he statistically and historically deserves a place in. You deny the Blob of his divine right, you run the risk of execution, and we wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the poor OCC interns, would we? So, I propose that when you update the page this year, to include 2024’s Christmas #1, you simply add a short passage acknowledging that not only did Mr Blobby achieve this feat but that as a company and national institution, you have been ignorant of if not actively opposed to this chart success, therefore refusing to celebrate the peak of Blobbymania. Surveys show that 80% of the British public still identify as Blobby fans and what do you mean I need to shut up and talk about the Spice Girls?

#13 – “Too Much” – Spice Girls (1997)

I do really enjoy many parts of this song, and would probably call it a great track, but there are parts that really hamper it from being perfect. The track is about equal treatment in a relationship, wherein it’d be too hard to let go completely but still needing their partner to be a better partner overall, not just a satisfactory lover and a genuine friend whom she can console in. I love that independent sentiment of demanding more from this guy, and the powerful line of “What part of no don’t you understand? I want a man, not a boy who thinks he can”, delivered by Mel C, belted right after the second chorus amidst a blast of horns, before fading (quite literally) into the brief sax solo, and returning with the same lyric to lead into the final hook, is a great moment! Hell, the song may be one of the best examples of their form of “girl power”, looking for small victories in a patriarchal world, but that moment in the bridge I just mentioned is also emblematic of a larger problem I have with the song, being that it was recorded hastily between filming their tie-in movie Spiceworld and therefore so much of it was tied together in post-production. Given how empty the verses feel, how the song just trails off and the lack of truly impressive solo parts other than the one I just mentioned, you can really tell – it’s still a great track, but one that deserved more time and a better process to elevate it even higher.

#12 – “Christmas Alphabet” – Dickie Valentine (1955)

This is a strange one, and also a relatively simple one, but I may have found a hidden gem with this one. The first Christmas #1 to actually be about Christmas, it’s so lovingly sincere in its attempt to make an acrostic children’s poem with the word “Christmas”, and to hear the choir singing not just every letter but at some point even specifying “Capital C” is really delightful. It sounds built for a stop-motion special, the intro particularly, but largely predates them, whilst still wrapping up its twinkly two minutes in a lovingly warm bow. Thank God Michael Bublé hasn’t found this one yet because Valentine’s version may not be the most impressive vocal or extensive composition but is simply a nice, pleasant tune that goes into adorable territory with the whole “Christmas Alphabet” gimmick. The dumb smile on my face is worth all the places I put it over genuine classics. How does this not return every year?

#11 – “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work it Out” – The Beatles (1965)

We have our final double A-side and second Beatles entry, with the next few coming really soon. I do like both of these songs a lot, but given how much analysis of the Beatles there is, for every angle of their discography, I’ll keep it brief, and none of these are or could even attempt to function as Christmas songs. The band promoted this single using performance videos, influencing the modern concept of music videos which would later become very important for several Christmas #1s long after, like “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Earth Song” and another we’ll see right near the end. It’s a really effective double A-side too, as they are simple, soul-influencd rock tunes that play with their constant intensity in different ways. “Day Tripper” has a raw group vocal but a tight, one-chord riff and apparently, this particular version was chosen because it was the one take that didn’t break down entirely. “We Can Work it Out”, far from the drug-influenced lyrics of its counterpart, and probably my favourite of the two, is a personal song about an ongoing breakup of a close relationship, with a much gentler acoustic, jangly folk stroll as McCartney carols on optimistically that the relationship can be salvaged, with the desperate chorus repeating that title as a mantra until it quite frankly devolves into Lennon’s deathly waltz contemplating on mortality that itself derails with Ringo’s drum crashes before picking back up again. The intensity is instead spread out into the song’s enemy-of-momentum, stop-and-start structure in contrast to “Day Tripper” but both paint an image of guys drifting away from compassion and desperately wanting their perspective known and prioritised. Not my all-time favourites from them, well, “We Can Work it Out” might be close, but still great songs and possibly the best use of the double A-side on this list.

#10 – “Hello, Goodbye” – The Beatles (1967)

Straight into more Beatles, and despite being much later into their career, fully in their more complex and progressive, psychedelic years, it refuses to venture outside of its traditional pop qualities, in a demonstration of refrain to experiment that you wouldn’t get from the Beatles this late usually. To be fair, its B-side is “I Am the Walrus”, so perhaps a more conventional track was needed, yet in its constant repetition of the confused duality, becomes quite experimental as it has to rely on flooding the mix with instruments that carry and more often distract from the guys’ hurried abstractism, whether that be the array of strings, stray guitar slide or the rising guitar progression in the right channel – I wouldn’t be surprised if “Telephone Line” by the Electric Light Orchestra (#8, 1977) cribbed that from this, the two sound very similar, and it’s even more obvious when the Beatles have a layered harmony vocal to that guitar’s melody. Ringo has one of his more impressively chaotic drum parts on this during what I can only describe as a breakdown alongside a rawer, barely-verbal vocal rant, and the song in its very last moments decides to implode into a scattered military band rhythm with ad-libbing in abundance, which I’m disappointed fades out. Derivative it may be, and lyrically, it’s practically nothing, but it does act as a good send-off for the Beatles’ final Christmas #1 together as it has the simple and basic idea of their older tracks, but the complex, surreal approach to building off of it as their later albums. “Hello, Goodbye”, in all its whimsy, is like one of those older compositions through the dizzying lens of psychedelia, eventually becoming a cacophony that only the Beatles could really take to the top of the charts.

#9 – “Lily the Pink” – The Scaffold (1968)

There are three picks in this top 10 that would probably strike you as a bit odd, or even goofy novelty choices, and I’m not really going to sit here and defend them as anything else… okay, well, I will later on, but this one is definitely pure novelty and I have no real idea why this music hall pub sing-a-long resonated with me nearly as much as it did. The Scaffold was a silly Liverpool comedy troupe of entertainers, one of which, Mike McGear, was Paul McCartney’s brother, who released a few novelty singles, this being their most successful. I did listen to another, and it actually caught me so off-guard and made me laugh really loud when they interrupted their bizarre “Thank U Very Much” (#4, 1968) by abruptly bursting into singing the national anthem. Otherwise, I had never heard of The Scaffold before this list, and I’d never heard of this song or its subject, Lydia Pinkham, who in the 1800s marketed a herbal remedy for menstruation and menopause called “women’s tonic”, which sought to cure “hysteria” and “women’s weakness”. Mostly dismissed by medical experts, her “vegetable compound” did relieve stress even if not provably curing anything, and stayed on the market due to frivolous advertising and filling a void in the market for women who were struggling with periods and the menopause, with the adverts even claiming that the remedy made them better wives and mothers.

“Lily the Pink”, a variation of an American folk song, takes this to ridiculous proportions, with the Scaffold lads listing, over a percussive, military-esque rhythm, ludicrous responses to mundane problems that are all traced back to Lily the Pink’s medicinal compound. A song gaining this much cultural space in the UK is interesting to me, as it’s a North American folk song that probably reached Brits through the army, as it was reportedly sung on Pennsylvania universities as early as 1902, and brought to prisoner-of-war camps by Canadian soldiers. Nearly a full century after Pinkham first established her remedy in response to economic ruin, The Scaffold fuse the melody with then-topical pop culture reference (now flying right past me, though they do reference the Hollies – weird band to come up twice) and a uniquely British humour. If you have large ears, you drink the compound and you can fly, which doesn’t solve your problem, just makes you Dumbo. Similarly, the compound puts a guy who wouldn’t eat his meals in a wheelchair, strengthens the delusions of a senile Ebenezer, turned a stammerer mute, gave an old woman with arthritis just… more legs, and performed what I can only describe as instant hormone therapy to a girl with freckles. It’s such a dumb joke but it allows for enough absurdity alongside the drinking song chorus that it really chuckled me, I like thinking of all these case studies they bring up that clearly contrast with the falsified advertisements they sing about in the hook, declaring Pinkham “the saviour of the human race”. Much like “Ernie” after it, this also has a sudden switch in the bridge to a more barebones, piano backing as Lily the Pink, in regret for making bizarre inhuman creations out of mundane, everyday problems like Auntie Milly-Pede and Old Ebenezer, Emperor of Rome, drinks herself to death. It took me aback in the first listen when they go for a bizarre choral switch and even outline that when she got to Heaven, she brought her bloody compound with her, and after an exhaustingly-held build-up, we crash right back into the chorus because the angels in Heaven have problems her remedy can supposedly solve too. It strays away from the ribald or offensive nature of the military songs into a sanitised but delightfully surreal and jaunty bop that I know is a bizarre song to place this high, but it’s basically a cartoon in song form so me personally ranking it highly should not be a surprise.

#8 – “Don’t You Want Me” – The Human League (1981)

This and the next song are obviously classics, ranking highly thanks to being undeniable songs, but they also don’t need much further explanation, and feel almost like obvious picks. “Don’t You Want Me” by Sheffield synthpop act The Human League has one of the greatest choruses ever written, plainly, and a dominating synth buzz to accommodate it. It didn’t need anything else to go #1 but the deadpan delivery of the back-and-forth narrative in the verses, with both vocalists not particularly impressing anyone, and so much of the song being in a staccato rhythm you could basically speak outside of the most integral parts (namely, the “oh-oh-oh-oh”), makes it a prime karaoke classic that has sustained itself through the test of time. This is all in spite of frontman Philip Oakey thinking the song was a piece of filler that fans would be ripped off if they bought it unless it was attached with a cool poster. He was so tremendously wrong about that but the man put out “Together in Electric Dreams” with Giorgio Moroder (#3, 1984) so he can say whatever he wants.

#7 – “I Want to Hold Your Hand” – The Beatles (1963)

…Obviously, right? One of my personal favourite Beatles songs, there’s something irresistible about the jovial riffs and innocuous pleading of wanting to hold this girl’s hand, delivering that proposition as if it were the most consequential decision of their entire lives. There’s not much else to say, it’s pure bubblegum, but it’s damn good and definitely a classic.

#6 – “2 Become 1” – Spice Girls (1996)

I know, I know, I know how bad this looks. This over every Beatles song, and I’d love to tell you that it was close and despite how “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is very much one of my favourite #1s of all time… it really wasn’t close, I adore “2 Become 1”. I am a sucker for 90s adult contemporary, and this is fully in Babyface territory, so that could be why, but mostly I just think this one of the smoothest sex jams that has hit the charts, and like a lot of the best sex songs, ends up being about much more. Namely, this song has some wider depths to it, especially in the context of it being a Christmas song, as a general call for togetherness. Sure, the chorus is about making love, but it ends by asking you to set your spirit free, after verses begging you to free your mind of doubt, allowing yourself to become one with someone in a more spiritual way that I find intriguing as something they included. It doesn’t make the song more wholesome, necessarily, but it does take the sexual angle and expands it into a more constant connection that really speaks to me. “It’s the only way to be” – the song sees human collaboration, love and togetherness as some kind of ultimate goal and accomplishment that I find genuinely compelling.

Of course, that’s not the main purpose of the song, and it’s not to green-screen yourself into a New York timelapse either, it’s a gorgeous R&B song with every trademark of the genre in this era: the delicate percs in the drum loops, the constant underlying strings that swell in blissfully at the needed moments, stray Latin-flavoured guitar, and a mix that uses all available space, especially with layered vocal harmonies and riffing. One of the first songs to come from the girls, you can tell that the vocals are limited but, especially in the intimate verses, that’s for the best as you can hear the charm of these five young women coming into pop music with all the energy they did, even in what would otherwise be a laidback smooth jam. I particularly love the pre-chorus, where Baby Spice – sorry, Emma Bunton – tempts their partner but in a fun-loving way, like stop dilly-dallying, be smart, put a condom on and come closer. She even asks the mocking question of “Are you as good as I remember?”, but aside from Bunton and their general chemistry as a group, the other stars are Mel B, repeating that spiritual mantra through to the song’s end and Victoria Beckham, handling the first half of both verses with a cute, intimate delivery that fits like a glove on this cascading glade of an instrumental. Perhaps not explicitly a Christmas song but one that fits its ethos in part and absolutely, through all its glistens and twinkles, fits the sound.

#5 – “Only You” – The Flying Pickets (1983)

Bit of a weird one, and one I’m not 100% about putting this high, partly because Margaret Thatcher loved it, showing that music can bring us together, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean she’s not in Hell, just that her playlist wasn’t all trash. I do like the original version by Yazoo, which is decidedly similar and the song feels built for a male vocalist given how it was written by Vince Clarke and originally sang by the deep, bluesy Alison Moyet. The cute, synthy and simple track is full of bleep-bloops and a nuanced set of lyrics interpreted to be about Clarke’s split from Depeche Mode but out of context, are more like a half-whispered request for a lover to always be with them in spite of the distance they’ve had to hold and will have to if the recipient of the song isn’t as dedicated, which makes enough sense for a primitive synthpop already reliant on the powerful vocal, but would make even more sense if every part of the song was just a bloke.

Yazoo’s version was simply released too late (or too early?) to be a Christmas #1, peaking at #2 in May of 1982, but a cappella group The Flying Pickets took the mantle of releasing what is already a nostalgic song with plenty of twinkling instrumentation into its deserved spot of the holiday chart-topper. Further layers of vocal harmony are added to make this a really unique single of the 1980s, one that plays with the complexities of layering vocal take upon vocal take to simulate a song structurally, with each “bah” of the main backing arranged not only in perfect, intricate order but spread across all channels to make an immersive mix that, for 1983, strikes me as genuinely impressive, and it really doesn’t sound like a miraculous take either given all th affects like the intrusive sci-fi synth-bloops that commences the song after a faded rise into phased harmony. The first a cappella song to hit #1 ever, it’s an unusual one at that, feeling like a haunting church choir but also like it could have soundtracked Yoshi’s Island for the SNES. The devotion of the lyrics becomes a lot more tangible when the lead vocal is struggling to stand out amidst a sea of other voices he occasionally phases into, and that 80s production turns a cappella versions into something borderline surreal with the new “ba-da-da” refrains similarly skating across the mix hitting against a choral wave and powered by a finger-snap with so much echo that it flutters as a snip rather than a snip, gathering about as much strength as a fly against a window or a piece of paper thrown away. The sheer amount of vocals, presumably pitch-shifted in the rising bridge, is stressful, it’s more effective than the more mechanical synth production of the Yazoo version at making you feel just how intense this long-distance relationship has proven to be, but also how intense the vocalist’s personal love is in spite of it, travelling across a never-ending hallway of ghostly vocal channels. Much like “Lily the Pink”, I definitely did not come into this project looking to rank this one very high, but I think this is beautiful and, whilst most songs in this top five emerge from the same decade, it still deserves its spot here.

#4 – “Last Christmas” – Wham! (2023)

No, that’s not a typo. The Wham! classic only reached #1 last year, this being the #2 I teased from back at the start as I was discussing Band Aid. This is also the highest-ranking Christmas song on the list! Much like “Another Brick in the Wall” or “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, I won’t waste your time discussing the ins and outs of what may be one of the most famous and recognisable songs ever written and released, but I do have a unique angle here at least, because despite being about Christmas, explicitly, and having Christmas in the title and lyrics constantly, with gift-giving as a prominent conceit, I struggle to say “Last Christmas” embodies the warmth of Christmas. In fact, part of why I think it has become so popular in its resurgence post-George Michael’s passing, especially in the US where it wasn’t that big initially, is because of how cold and angry it can be, the kind of Christmas song that isn’t saccharine and ages well once the childlike joy of the festivity is gone.

Rather than anything all too jolly, “Last Christmas” is a scathing indictment of an ex-lover as not valuable and a waste of time. We may be forgetting when we sentimentalise this song that it is one of the bitterest post-breakup piss-offs in pop music history: “I wasted my time and effort with you, but now I see you don’t value me, so next year, I’ll run off and give my love to someone who’s actually worth any of my time”. The verses mostly describe, passive-aggressively, George Michael trying to avoid an ex-lover, and given he is the sole writer and producer of the song, you can tell this was cathartic for him, it really couldn’t have been anyone other than him selling this song. Sure, the 80s synthpop textures would have had a similar balance between the cold wintry outside and the gathering-around-the-fireplace warmth, especially with the sleigh bells, but the delivery of the lyrics may be the most integral part of this song: genuinely every single inflection in the verses is perfect. The switch between drawing out the notes of “Once bitten and twice shy” versus the staccato delivery of “You still catch my eye”, the whispered “Happy Christmas” in the first verse building up into a half-belt, the comical aside of “it’s been a year, it doesn’t surprise me”. He finds a new way to emphasise the drama and betrayal of “You gave it away!” in the backing vocals each chorus, the layering of the vocals in the second verse getting so intense that its residue crosses over into where the next line would be, making it so that him finding a new love actually comes with the literal passage of time, it’s brilliant. The change of “You gave it away” in one of the final choruses to “You gave me away” is what takes it over that last hump: it’s not about Christmas, it’s about humans valuing each others’ time and effort, and the pain, even in this decorative synthpop sound, is audible. The attention to detail with the vocals following the narrative is really something that I had to notice after years of listening to the song and it clicked with me why and how it worked all these years without getting old: it’s really a universal feeling of wanting to be cared about that can never disappear once the naïve wonders of the holiday do. If there’s a sentiment that always follows Christmas, regardless of age, it’s the knowledge that people, in spite of everything, do love you. Both that sentiment of unconditional love and attention to detail, as well as nearly everything else considering it’s another 80s pop duo, carries on into our next song, the highest song on this list to have reached #1 in its year of release.

#3 – “Always on My Mind” – Pet Shop Boys (1987)

My favourite Pet Shop Boys song is “Suburbia”, but this is a close second, and it may take a while to explain why. This song originates from Wayne Carson, who had the song in writing development Hell for a good amount of time, with the three exhausted songwriters eventually all finishing it but initially, to no success. Carson has said to the Los Angeles Times that he was a burden in the recording studio constantly working on it, with the song’s main conceit being: “It’s sort of like all guys who screw up and would love nothing better than to pick up the phone and call their wives and say, 'Listen, honey, I could have done better, but I want you to know that you were always on my mind.'” Originally a country ballad, the song’s backstory is from when Carson had to phone his wife that he needed to be in Memphis for longer than he was intending to, and how “irate” she was about that, and there’s something really heartbreaking about the distance there: Carson gives this excuse that is intended to reassure her – “I was thinking about you all the time” – when it’s his presence that actually matters. He can phone in and say that all he likes, but he’s still not there and since he’s so far away from her, he can’t exactly understand how much that matters and how meaningless of a statement that is. In 1972, the song would eventually find its hit-making vocalist in Elvis Presley (#9, 1973), and then this cover version has a perfect storm leading up to it.

Elvis’ version never hit #1 in the UK but, thanks I’m sure in part to the Pet Shop Boys’ version, it is Britain’s favourite song of his, according to ITV’s 2013 poll. The admiration for this song runs deep, partly because it’s simply been performed incredibly well three separate times by big-name artists and I would like to say partly because of how each performance exacerbates the labour that was involved in making the song. Willie Nelson won a GRAMMY with his version (#49, 1982) and deservedly so, his version is probably my favourite of the sentimental country versions, and was produced by Chips Moman himself, who owned the studio Carson was staying at a decade earlier trying to finish the song. In 1987, ITV commemorated 10 years since Elvis had died with a television special featuring covers of songs he made famous by then-contemporary acts, with one of those being the Pet Shop Boys – the reception was so positive that it was released as a single and edged out The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” (#2, 1987-8) for the top spot. If that did hit #1, it would be right above this one, by the way, look at that Christmas top 10 if you get the chance, it is unbelievably stacked.

This new hi-NRG version from the Boys is my favourite, and that comes mostly from the loose interpretation of it as a synth-heavy dance track that chugs along with the beeping drum rhythm and overwhelming synth horns that crash into the mix. To do electronic sound design this immersive and detailed before widely available DAWs, again, strikes me as genuinely impressive, and Neil Tennant turns the guilty admissions of Carson, Elvis and Nelson before him into flailing desperacy – he longs to reassure that he was always thinking about his partner that he could have treated the way they deserved, but the driving synthpop backing beat is actively taking him away, driving him off in a car that eventually fades out alongside the entire mix, accentuating just how likely that sentiment is to be caught on deaf ears. It’s a risky choice to update the song this drastically but it elevates it to such a grand electronic statement of unmet promises and may be the best send-off to the big 80s sound on that ethos alone. This is not really a Christmas song in any way, and no, neither are the two upcoming songs, which I say despite the first one being quite literally the year before.

#2 – “Reet Petite” – Jackie Wilson (1986)

Jackie Wilson was a wild guy. He was an ex-boxer by his teenage years, first married at 17, had a shit-ton of kids, got shot in the stomach by a crazed fan and/or ex-girlfriend depending on whose story you believe, and evaded more taxes than Jimmy Carr. His performances were a frenzied workout sesh that in the 1960s, probably felt like you were watching time speed up in front of you, he was truly one of the first to live the stereotypical “rockstar” lifestyle. He was the nightcore version of himself, and by Christmas 1986, he had been dead for two years, having long been incapacitated since he collapsed on stage in 1975. So how’d it go #1 in that year’s Christmas season?

Firstly, it’s timeless, and Wilson’s role in popular music is probably a lot more important than is given credit. Not only was he a genuine menace on and off stage in a way the tabloids post-Beatles would have a field day with, but this song funded one of the most important moments in popular music: the Motown moment. Originally released in 1957, you can accredit some of (also an ex-boxer) Berry Gordy’s cash and cred to him co-writing this song, and many others of Wilson’s catalogue, back when he started in the industry. Sure, there would be songs more seminal and integral to the Motown story, but this was the first ever successful single Gordy wrote: it kickstarted the venture that would lead to some of the most important pop, R&B and soul releases in the history of pop music, and soundtracked the civil rights era, allowing for further integration of black art into the industry and popular zeitgeist. I’m not saying Jackie Wilson started all that, or that this silly song about a girl is why Michael Jackson exists, but I really think we should give “Reet Petite” its flowers for that, and also maybe the fact that it’s a massive banger! At less than three minutes, it wastes no time with its lovestruck nonsense lyrics closer to jazz scatting and sound effects than what Motown would eventually be known for, as well as the dynamics of this racket of a song. 1957? I would have a Goddamn heart attack if I was a record executive hearing this in 1957, with those blaring horn stabs and pointless doo-wop harmonies that seem to be there to bring the chaos down to earth but actually just make it more of a cacophony. He rolls his R’s like he’s the Eisenhower-era Desiigner (could be related for all we know, he got around), and his performance is not crazed as much as it’s just infatuated, full of hooks and gut reactions to seeing what must have been the cutest girl of all time if it made him sing like this. Oh, and it hit #1 in 1986. Let’s explain that one.

So BBC Two had a documentary series called Arena – still has, apparently – but I’m not familiar with it outside of the fact that it had a sequence by Giblets that featured this song. It must have been a weird tone shift because high-art documentaries seem to be that show’s bread and butter, and this was a grotesque Claymation music video for a dusty, greased-up wolf-with-eyes-bulging-out-of-his-head tune by a dead guy from 1957. It ends up portraying the guy as a baby, going completely weak and head over heels for said finest girl you ever want to meet, and yeah, exemplifies the song’s character perfectly. The single got reissued posthumously and it hit #1 because this was basically a viral, fan-made animated music video in 1986, that is insane. The amount of tiny little influential and ahead of its time details that exist about this song, its story, its rise to #1, should be something of legend but I don’t see it discussed nearly enough. I want to change that.

So that was a long ramble. It’s not as long a ramble as I’m going to grant the #1, because it should be obvious. There’s been some trash heaps here – culturally degrading charity singles, manufactured trite, songs that just don’t work for me personally – but also some absolute all-timers, from iconic songs reigning as classics that I don’t fully get the appeal of to some of the most influential and undeniable records ever written and released. And Hell, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, you can have tons of disagreements with my list placing, and I fully expect that, music is wonderful like that. I don’t think there’ll be anyone who does not understand where I’m coming from with this one, though. Say it with me: Motherfucker.

#1 – “Killing in the Name” – Rage Against the Machine (2009)

Everyone knows the story by now, right? It’s almost cliché. Jon Morter, who is a genuinely interesting anti-corporate campaigner, was sick of those X Factor tracks hitting #1, and so was his wife – LadBaby, eat your heart out – so the couple made a Facebook page campaigning for another, less politically correct, less radio-friendly track to hit #1. So we sent one of the greatest middle fingers to authority and police brutality of all time to #1 years after it first peaked at #25 in 1993. Even better, Simon Cowell himself disproved of the campaign… and it gathered even more support as a result. Rock legends got behind them, it gathered more support. Rage go on BBC Radio to perform the track, Zack de la Rocha says “fuck” damn near 20 times, it gathers even more support. It eventually sold 500,000 downloads, with thousands of proceeds from the campaign going to homeless shelters. But I bet you don’t hear Tom Morello and Jon Morter doing soft-ball interviews bragging about their achievements on the radio, desperately keeping the charity in their mouths so it doesn’t seem like they’re gleefully parading in the fame. They let the moment happen, and it was a kickass moment. Why didn’t we send rap metal to the top every year? “Sabotage” (#19, 1994) the next year, “Break Stuff” the year after, it would have been special, guys. I’m just saying.

Ultimately, I don’t have to explain “Killing in the Name” to you – you’ve probably heard it, and you haven’t, just listen to it and you’ll get why it’s up here. You may think it’s silly, immature or even cynical to put a song that spits in the face of what a Christmas #1 has evolved to mean at the top of this list. Understand, however, that if anything, that’s what makes it so great: strip away your connotations of what a Christmas #1 should be or sound like, or Hell, what a #1 hit in general should be willing to tackle, and just focus on what it is: the song people are listening to. The song the public like the most at any given time. Isn’t it incredible that we all collectively seized control of what we earn from capitalism, we seized control of the shape an abusive web of industries takes to convince us there’s any real value to it, we seized control of the industry, to completely reject it, even if just for one week? But hey, if you’re still not convinced and think I should have put Westlife up here instead… fuck you. I won’t do what you tell me. Jedward were on the side of the people! Thanks for reading, long live Cola Boyy, and I’ll see you in the next episode!

…

Just kidding.

#1 – “Mr Blobby” – Mr Blobby (1993)

Blobby supremacy, everyone! One nation under Blobby. Praise Blob. Glory to our gracious Blob. Blob Save the King… who is also Blobby. Merry Christmas.

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #song ranking #christmas music #christmas #beatles #mr blobby #spice girls #uk charts #jackie wilson #wham #rage against the name #flying pickets #x factor #band aid #pet shop boys #christmas number one #christmas chart

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