2023 Christmas No.1

Are Wham number 1 at the moment with Mariah at 2, and The Pogues at 3 or am I looking at the wrong thing? :confused:

Also, do we have any midweeks for this week?
 
Are Wham number 1 at the moment with Mariah at 2, and The Pogues at 3 or am I looking at the wrong thing? :confused:

Also, do we have any midweeks for this week?
Wednesday

1 Wham! - Last Christmas (36,526)
2 Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas Is You (33,676)
3 The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York (28,542)
4 Jack Harlow - Lovin On Me (27,095)
5 Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (26,442)

6-10
6 Ed Sheeran & Elton John - Merry Christmas
7 Sam Ryder - You're Christmas to Me
8 Michael Bublé - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
10 Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock

11-20
11 Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone
12 Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me
13 Kelly Clarkson - Underneath the Tree
14 Andy Williams - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
15 Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?
16 Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
18 Jorja Smith - Stay Another Day
19 John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Plastic Ono Band - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) ^
20 Michael Bublé - Holly Jolly Christmas ^

21-30
21 Chris Rea - Driving Home for Christmas ^
22 Elton John - Step Into Christmas ^
23 Taylor Swift - You're Losing Me *
25 Sia - Snowman
26 Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime ^
27 The Ronettes - Sleigh Ride ^
28 Wizzard - I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday ^
30 José Feliciano - Feliz Navidad ^

31-40
31 Leona Lewis - One More Sleep ^
32 Justin Bieber - Mistletoe ^
33 Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody ^
37 Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) ^
40 Nat "King" Cole - The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) ^
 
I've mentioned how streaming of Christmas songs is up year on year, but it must also be the case that nothing else is streaming significantly as well.
 
Does Taylor Swift not have an actual Christmas song or did I dream that?
 
I am genuinely upset that the digital platforms have taken it upon themselves to now deem Ed Fucking Sheeran as a Christmas staple, despite the fact that nobody actually gives a shit for once. That song is beyond crap and completely irrelevant. Can’t we just have a break from him for one fucking minute?

Also the fact that it seems to have replaced Elton’s solo number as Elton’s go to Christmas song which is frankly ridiculous
 
This is year three for Sheeran and Elton John, isn't it? So presumably ACR will kick in next year and it won't have the same impact from next year.

On Spotify Step Into Christmas is #24 and the Sheeran duet #29. So I don't think Step Into Christmas has been usurped as much as just having the odds stacked against it - but hopefully that will be redressed next year if ACR kicks in.

The duet is doing considerably better on iTunes (currently #11 and #25 against #35 for Step Into Christmas), but I very much doubt those sales are high enough to make a significant difference compared to streaming numbers.
 
Once again I forgot about ACR, so that is more encouraging. Looking forward to it fucking off next year then, hopefully.

Still horrible seeing it at #6 though ahead of all those other songs :zombie:
 
Why does Greg Lake never do well any more? It's one of the few Christmas songs that is a genuine classic.
 
Why does Greg Lake never do well any more? It's one of the few Christmas songs that is a genuine classic.
The songs basically chart in order they are on the heavily Americanised Spotify playlists, which are rarely updated, and most people are on auto-pilot or too lazy to make their own. Many UK artists will miss out on the charts every year because their songs aren’t included, and record labels don’t want artists to make new Christmas songs because they get ignored. Greg Lakes’s song probably isn’t on the playlists.
 
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I Believe In Father Christmas isn't on the 100 track biggest Christmas playlist on Spotify called 'Christmas Hits'. It is on the second playlist I'm offered called 'Christmas Is Coming', but only in 63rd position. And that playlist has 1.084m followers, compared to the first's 5.5m, so won't make anywhere as near as much impact.

As much as iTunes sales are small with the exception of big campaigns, I do find it interesting to see the order songs chart there, compared to Spotify playlists. Greg Lake is only #161 on iTunes.

But then of course there must come a point where if people aren't being exposed to a song, it gets largely forgotten about, and I can see that happening to a lot of the older British Christmas hits which used to be in regular rotation. And Greg Lake was always one I remember from my childhood, and that was frequently on compilation CDs.

These days I suspect it doesn't get heard much outside of Smooth Radio.
 
It's a real shame that some of the old classics are being forgotten about, while the likes of Bublé are thriving!!
 
I Believe In Father Christmas isn't on the 100 track biggest Christmas playlist on Spotify called 'Christmas Hits'. It is on the second playlist I'm offered called 'Christmas Is Coming', but only in 63rd position. And that playlist has 1.084m followers, compared to the first's 5.5m, so won't make anywhere as near as much impact.

As much as iTunes sales are small with the exception of big campaigns, I do find it interesting to see the order songs chart there, compared to Spotify playlists. Greg Lake is only #161 on iTunes.

But then of course there must come a point where if people aren't being exposed to a song, it gets largely forgotten about, and I can see that happening to a lot of the older British Christmas hits which used to be in regular rotation. And Greg Lake was always one I remember from my childhood, and that was frequently on compilation CDs.

These days I suspect it doesn't get heard much outside of Smooth Radio.
I mean, it's also no Cher - DJ Play a Christmas Song, is it?
 
I've had the Krackpots song in my head for the last three days. Proper catchy.
 
I do wish that Spotify etc would prioritise recent Christmas releases just to mix it up a bit every year. (not including charity novelty records)

I'm not the biggest fan of the Cher song, but it absolutely should be high up on the playlists at least for this year.
 
I do wish that Spotify etc would prioritise recent Christmas releases just to mix it up a bit every year. (not including charity novelty records)

I'm not the biggest fan of the Cher song, but it absolutely should be high up on the playlists at least for this year.
Or even just (or hell, why not BOTH) have a playlist of New Christmas Songs - I know people would largely default to the old faithfuls, but some people would be curious and give it a go.
 
I mean I guess it proves that in general, people do consume the same old shit with minimal effort and the way the charts are measured now reflects that. They didn’t for the first 60 odd years as you had to buy a record and, once purchased, you likely wouldn’t buy again so it only counted once. But even when whoever was #1 in 1998, it’s just as likely a song from a week or month prior, or on a big album was actually the most consumed at the time…it just wasn’t (and couldn’t) be measured.

I read a quote from the Aussie chart company in relation to trying to get more new Australian songs into the chart that pretty much said ‘we could implement rules like the UK, but it won’t fix the underlying issue which is people aren’t listening to the newer stuff, or that many Australian artists to the levels they are of the long running stuff…so why just mask the fact if it doesn’t solve it.’. And to be fair, that’s a valid point.
 
The crucial difference is I guess whether the charts measure what people are buying, or what they are listening to. Years ago we had that argument by whether we included airplay or not, which I'm glad we never did, personally, so I think anything which deviated from a sales chart would be a harder sell to me.

Back then you could have that argument because people were buying music in much more significant amounts. Now actual sales are so low that a chart which only measures that (which of course still exists) is pretty irrelevant.

So although it took me relatively a long time to get behind streaming, I do get why it's an important measure when music isn't purchased like it used to be. But only really if people are actively seeking and listening to that music.

Of course it's true that playlists are important - I'm sure that there's all sorts of payola going on routinely. It's just that Christmas exposes it like nothing else.

There is never going to be an answer which pleases everyone, but if I had the power, my first two actions would be to exclude Christmas songs specifically from the main singles chart, or at least any Christmas song older than an agreed age - I'd probably say two years. Move them to a festive chart which only appears from mid November to the start of January. I'd consider something similar for all old tracks at any time of year, open to exception for tracks like Running Up That Hill, but that could wait.

Then I'd create a catalogue chart for albums over two years old.

This may need some fine tuning, but it would get rid of my biggest chart bugbears, I think.
 
I'd agree with that suggestion, but zero chance the streaming platforms would go for that (especially if there really is some payola happening for playlist placings).

It would also make "sales" tallies look pathetic I expect. The average consumer is likely quite LAZY. "Spotify play "Songs to sing in the car" "
 
It gets a bit messy there. I’m listening to music as I work right now, and while I normally use my own playlist, I’ve chucked on Hot Hits 2001 or whatever it’s called. Spotify made that playlist - but I still have chosen to listen to it. I don’t like every song on there, but then each song on my own playlists I like to varying extents and often will just let them run through anyway, particularly when I’m passive listening like now.

There really is no overall answer. I guess it’s a case of what should the chart now reflect and what is its purpose (new music? Most consumed tracks whatsoever? Does that therefore include youtube videos? How about airplay if it’s consumption?) - an issue facing both the singles and album charts. Even sales have their problems - cassettes or signed CDs getting Dua Lipa and Olivia Rodrigo a sneaky week each at #1 is clearly just bullshit as far as any extra people consuming their song that week.

Lolly has some very good suggestions above. But each idea that anyone comes up with has negative side effects (I think a two year limit is great, but then if that’s without ACR we are just going to have half the top twenty being songs 50-100 weeks old; a festive chart would get rid of the ridiculous six week Christmas take over but then is that fair to brand new Christmas tracks?).

So I don’t know if there is a solution, really.
 
As far as Christmas songs are concerned, I think it's only the old ones I'd bump off into a heritage/festive/catalogue chart. New ones are new hits and could remain eligible for the main chart.

As far eliminating tracks over 2 years old at any time outside of Christmas, I would still also apply ACR before that - but probably on some sort of sliding scale where the ratio increases a lot more as the songs age. I think I'd be happy first applying it at the same time as now, but then probably increase it again at week 20 or whatever, and again after that, so the songs don't just clog lower down, and allow new tracks to have far more impact.
 
The current ratio:sale for paid streams on ACR is only 200:1, so they should just increase it for Christmas songs to 300:1 or 400:1 or even 500:1. There would still be an impact on the chart, but not as significant. Spotify will always put the most popular songs at the top of their playlists. Last weekend Wham! and Mariah did over a million streams on Sat and Sun, which was still higher on ACR than Jack Harlow on SCR. He has caught up a bit over the week but it’s not enough. It means the OCC has to reset a lot of ‘older’ songs in January to compensate for November and December which screws up the normal chart for longer.
 
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If the Christmas #1 isn’t Wham! or Mariah, the winning song will need more sales than in recent years because the mid-weeks are up over 5K on 2022 and it’s not slowing down.
 
The OCC has to do something about the single chart at Christmas, surely. The singles chart for 10% of the year is useless, and it seems its only getting more pronounced with every year.

Every few days I've been following how songs are comparing with previous years in terms of Spotify streams in the UK. Looking at this Wednesday, Last Christmas this year is tracking 20% up on the same day in 2022. And just over 50% up on 2021. All I Want For Christmas Is You is up 45% over 2 years, Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree up 57%, and Jingle Bell Rock up 71%.

I'm pretty confident that growth way outstrips the growth of Spotify streaming generally. If you look at the number of non Christmas hits in the Spotify charts, the number is dropping every year.
 
I assume it may be the older generation slowly moves to streaming over time, so we tend to see more older songs streamed these days relative to newbies? It looks like the #100 of the year is going to ‘sell’ north of 400k, and from memory a year or two ago that was about 50k lower. But weekly ‘sales’ in the top end of the chart seem significantly down from 2020/2021 or so?

That might explain Christmas as potentially those people 30+ are possibly more likely to stream Xmas music in a higher % than teenagers etc? Of course, this could be simply bullshit and not true at all :D
 
I assume it may be the older generation slowly moves to streaming over time, so we tend to see more older songs streamed these days relative to newbies? It looks like the #100 of the year is going to ‘sell’ north of 400k, and from memory a year or two ago that was about 50k lower. But weekly ‘sales’ in the top end of the chart seem significantly down from 2020/2021 or so?

That might explain Christmas as potentially those people 30+ are possibly more likely to stream Xmas music in a higher % than teenagers etc? Of course, this could be simply bullshit and not true at all :D
Yes, considering I'm comparing to 2021, I think it's true to say that younger people (and probably most older ones who frequently listen to music) were already more than comfortable with Spotify and streaming by that point. I think probably the growth has come from older people and more casual music fans who are more likely to listen to Christmas music, and perhaps playlists generally.
 
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Am I the only one that quite likes it come December when the Christmas songs invade the chart? :santa:
 

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