With Clean Bandit set for this year’s top spot, the race to Christmas number one is over, says ex-Radio 1 DJ
It used to be the biggest pop battle, but the music industry has changed and the coveted Christmas number one is no more
IT used to be the biggest pop chart of the year – the day the Christmas No1 was announced.
The planet’s top acts would battle it out to be festive champion, with many competing with specially written tracks.
But tomorrow, bar an act of God, the Christmas Top Ten will be a damp squib.
Challenges from Friends Of Jo Cox, Louis Tomlinson and Little Mix currently have not generated enough sales to dislodge it.
Even X Factor winner Matt Terry’s When Christmas Comes Around — a proper Christmas song written by a proper songwriter, Ed Sheeran — was languishing at No3 in the midweek charts.
So is the Christmas No1 dead? It certainly looks broken.
Music experts will blame the way the industry has changed over the decades.
With 100 online streams counted as one sale in the charts and fans increasingly streaming the same songs over and over, singles tend to creep slowly up the charts rather than debuting at the top as they used to do.
Then there’s The X Factor. For years the winner would take Christmas No1 with ease, putting off other acts from even trying to challenge them.
But while 17million people used to watch the show, the audience is down to just seven million — and that excuse does not apply any more.
Not only that, but there’s a public appetite for an alternative — just look at the backlash that got Rage Against The Machine to the top in December 2009.
The real reason for the decline of the Christmas No1 is a huge creative gap, with our biggest pop stars simply not bothering to write the sort of classic Christmas tunes I remember from my childhood.
The last time a top artist reached the No1 spot at this time of year was in 2001 when Robbie Williams duetted with Nicole Kidman.
Back in the golden age of the Seventies it was seen as a badge of honour to have a festive hit. The biggest stars on the planet — from Paul McCartney to Elton John — all competed to produce the best.
Glam rockers Slade battled it out with Wizzard for the top spot at Christmas 1973 and, in the Sixties, The
Beatles had three No1s in a row. The songs were classics. People still want to listen to them today.
My favourite Christmas song, Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues, is at No 18 this year despite being released nearly 30 years ago and Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit All I Want For Christmas Is You is at No 8.
The difference between the golden era and now is that in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties most of the bands which put out festive records were already major acts with fanbases big enough to sell a lot of records.
I want to see the best artists challenging each other again.
The likes of Adele or Take That could score a Christmas No1 if they put out a quality song.
If Ed Sheeran had performed When Christmas Comes Around himself, rather than handing it to this year’s X Factor winner, I’m certain it could have been huge.
Mark's Top Ten Christmas songs
1) Fairytale Of New York – The Pogues (ft Kirsty MacColl)
2) Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John & Yoko/ The Plastic Ono Band
3) Last Christmas – Wham!
4) Step Into Christmas – Elton John
5) These Are The Days Of Our Lives – Queen
6) Sleigh Ride – The Ronettes
7) Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boys
8) Let It Snow – Dean Martin
9) Stay Another Day – East 17
10) Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney
Instead, we have a yearly crop of charity singles.
Since Band Aid 20 was No1 in 2004, we have had the Military Wives, the Justice Collective and the Lewisham And Greenwich NHS Choir all topping the festive chart, and this year there is the Jo Cox single competing for top spot.
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Those projects are important and commendable. But you buy those songs because you love the charity rather than because you want the song to remind you of Christmas.
We don’t even get novelty songs these days, such as Bob the Builder’s Can We Fix It? in 2000 or Mr Blobby in 1993.
Clean Bandit’s Rockabye is an OK song from an act of the moment. It has been No1 for six weeks already without record-breaking sales.
But people won’t remember it in a decade. The charts may have changed, but people still love music. So it’s high time we fired up our pop stars to write the sort of tunes we will still be humming 20 years from now.
All I want for Christmas is this — a No1 which we will continue to cherish, and the start of a new golden era.
Nation's biggest festive earners
THE memorable Christmas tune is a gift which keeps on giving – to the stars who wrote them. Bands such as Slade earn a fortune from repeat plays.
Here are what the top earners make each year:
1) Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody – £500,000
2) The Pogues: Fairytale of New York – £400,000
3) Mariah Carey: All I Want For Christmas Is You – £375,000
4) Bing Crosby: White Christmas – £330,000
5) Wham!: Last Christmas – £300,000
6) Paul McCartney: Wonderful Christmastime – £260,000
7) Jona Lewie: Stop The Cavalry – £120,000
8) The Pretenders: 2000 Miles – £102,000
9) Cliff Richard: Mistletoe And Wine – £100,000
10) East 17: Stay Another Day – £97,000