And the 2023 UK Christmas #1 one is…
The annual betting insanity over which single will finish at #1 on the last British singles chart before Christmas is over for another year. And for the first time in five years, it’s nothing from Ladbaby and their silly sausage roll-themed nonsense. Instead, the honor goes to Wham and “Last Christmas.”
Yes, it was released in 1984, but with the way charts are compiled these days–they place a very, very heavy on weight on streaming instead of sales–older songs have a better shot at making it to the number one spot. “Last Christmas” was propelled to the top by 13.3 million streams over the last seven days, making it the most-streamed song ever during Christmas week. It’s now the UK third-biggest song ever with sales of 1.93 million units and 413 million streams.
This is the first time “Last Christmas” has reached the top in the 39 years since its release. It had a chance in its first year, but it had the misfortune of being released at the same time as Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas.”
Andrew Ridgely had this to say.
The final chart before Christmas looks like this:
- Last Christmas, Wham
- You’re Christmas to Me, Sam Ryder
- All I Want for Christmas is You, Mariah Carey
- Stick Season, Noah Kahan
- Merry Christmas, Elton John and Ed Sheeran
- Fairytale of New York, The Pogues
- Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Brenda Lee
- Lovin on Me, Jack Harlow
- It’s Beginning to Look at Lot Like Christmas, Michael Buble
- Mary Christmas Everyone, Shakin’ Stevens
And in case you’re wondering, the campaign push on AC/DC’s “Mistress for Christmas” failed miserably. It didn’t even make the Top 100.
