2023 Christmas No.1

It's not really a news article about the charts the BBC have published though. It's essentially a Sam Ryder interview / puff piece, and they just picked the charts as an angle. He's not even realistically going to be number one. He's only just scraped into the top ten as it is.

More intriguing is the possibility of Noah Kahan leapfrogging the Xmas hits to pole position.
It's not really a news article, I agree. The frustrating thing though is that they kind highlight a problem but then completely ignore it.

I still wouldn't trust amazon not to push it harder this week. And he also has a CD single out this week, although I'm not quite sure if there's a huge market for that.
 
I read yesterday that Fairytale Of New York is getting a vinyl release as well, out next Tuesday. I assume releasing it that late is because it was a last minute thing and it wasn't planned all along.
 
Interesting to see Last Christmas, although holding at #1, dipping in sales by 9% week on week. It's now at the same level it was last year for the same week - but last year it had grown 11% from the week before.

I noticed last weekend that both Wham! and Mariah were both down on the weekend before, which surprised me. Presumably it continued throughout the week.
Yeah, Christmas streams in general have lower this week. There were more non-Christmas songs on SCR which made the lower end of the chart. Wham! and Mariah and maybe Brenda were getting 1mil+ streams last weekend but it seemed to be a blip potentially because of bad weather and people choosing to stay in to decorate their homes with it being the first week of December.
 
Interesting to see Last Christmas, although holding at #1, dipping in sales by 9% week on week. It's now at the same level it was last year for the same week - but last year it had grown 11% from the week before.

I noticed last weekend that both Wham! and Mariah were both down on the weekend before, which surprised me. Presumably it continued throughout the week.

I’m sure I recall in previous years where Christmas songs have performed better YOY have peaked early and then struggled to maintain performance for Christmas week. It’s looking possible that Noah Kahan might beat them all.

Then again, it feels like the chart rules and streaming behaviour is still evolving and it’s impossible to know based on what’s happened before.
 
I'll do the UK Spotify Top 10 daily for Christmas chart week

Friday 15th December

01 Last Christmas - Wham! 854k
02 All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey 796k
03 Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee 698k
04 Fairytale Of New York - The Pogues feat Kirsty MacColl 575k
05 It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Michael Bublé 563k
06 Santa Tell Me - Ariana Grande - 533k
07 Stick Season - Noah Kahan - 521k
08 Lovin On Me - Jack Harlow - 488k
09 It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - Andy Williams 484k
10 Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Dean Martin 482k
 
If we want to predict who the OCC has arbitrarily chosen as number one, should we effectively double the numbers of Kahan (and Harlow?).
 
If we want to predict who the OCC has arbitrarily chosen as number one, do we effectively have to double the numbers of Kahan (and Harlow?).
You can even factor in the size of Spotify compared to the other streaming providers if you want a real festive chart boner.
 
Spotify Saturday 16th December

01 Last Christmas - Wham! 975k
02 All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey 930k
03 Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee 832k
04 It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Michael Bublé 667k
05 Fairytale Of New York - The Pogues feat Kirsty MacColl 638k
06 Santa Tell Me - Ariana Grande 620k
07 It's The Most Wonderful Time Of Year - Andy Williams 595k
08 Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Dean Martin 580k
09 Jingle Bell Rock 577k
10 Underneath The Tree - Kelly Clarkson 523k

15 Stick Season - Noah Kahan 475k
17 Lovin On Me - Jack Harlow 454k

42 (New Peak) DJ Play A Christmas Song - Cher 225k
 
Last Christmas is 10k up on last Saturday, but 187k down on two weeks ago.
 
Any sign of "Wriggle Like A Fucking Eel" by Whitehouse? That always gets the Christmas do going in our office.
 
It does look like Cher might get her biggest hit for 22 years with this song… just needs to go up 17 places and with it moving into top 50 of Spotify I think it’s very possible.
 
Weren't they supposedly very close last week as well?

I wonder if amazon has found a way to convince the OCC that streams on Prime for the film should count towards the singles chart as well?
 
Wham! have got this.

Sam’s biggest chance will be next week when Wham! don’t have physicals and Amazon can just say “yeah, 14mil people listened to the song this week”.
 
Spotify Sunday 17th December

01 Wham! 860k
02 Mariah Carey 816k
03 Brenda Lee 751k
04 Michael Bublé 592k
05 Ariana Grande 567k
06 The Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl 560k
07 Andy Williams 539k
08 Dean Martin 525k
09 Bobby Helms 520k
10 Kelly Clarkson 470k

15 Noah Kahan 422k
20 Jack Harlow 358k

30 Leona Lewis
38 Cher 220k
 
In a funny way it suits FONY's narrative not to be a #1 - the perennial underdog. By contrast Wham! reaching #1 almost felt like righting a wrong, even tho' that "wrong" was circumstantial and, indeed, supported by Michael himself.
 
I said elsewhere, I doubted there is as much public affection for McGowan as there is for GM.

It's a lovely fun song and I do play it only on Xmas Eve in spite of the gammons. It only hits for me on that day. I'd be surprised if GBeebies weren't running a campaign to make it no.1.
 
The issue with FONY is those who want it to be number one are not pro-active enough to make it happen. It hasn’t risen on iTunes much at all. They don’t want to spend the 99p or whatever it is but keep saying “FONY must be #1” so in the end nobody is buying it. I actually responded to someone who said that and they replied “huh?” so there you go.

There’s a psychological term for it but I cannae remember what.
 
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For me, Fairytale of New York is much more than just a Christmas song. It's a brilliant song that happens to be set around Christmas time. I get as much enjoyment listening to it in February as I do in December.

I would apply that to Last Christmas too.
 
For me, Fairytale of New York is much more than just a Christmas song. It's a brilliant song that happens to be set around Christmas time. I get as much enjoyment listening to it in February as I do in December.

I would apply that to Last Christmas too.


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I’m seeing reports now not only of Alexa playing Sam Ryder’s Christmas song at every possible opportunity, but also going out of her way to avoid playing Wham. :D
 
I’m seeing reports now not only of Alexa playing Sam Ryder’s Christmas song at every possible opportunity, but also going out of her way to avoid playing Wham. :D

Songs have been disqualified for chart rigging tactics a lot less SAVAGE than this.

Fuck you Amazon if that NON SONG gets Christmas number 1.
 
I’m seeing reports now not only of Alexa playing Sam Ryder’s Christmas song at every possible opportunity, but also going out of her way to avoid playing Wham. :D
That POOR WOMAN!
 
I've not tried asking Alexa 'play Christmas music' to know what happens if you do that, but Last Christmas seems at least reasonably well represented on their playlists. Wham! are first on the Greatest Christmas Songs and Christmas Past playlists (Sam 5th on Greatest Christmas Songs and the first on the Christmas Present), and are on most of the others as well in a good position.

And I just tried their Christmas Music station which offered me Wham! first and Sam second.
 
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To be fair, Sam being 5th on Greatest Christmas Songs is evidence enough…
 
We all do know the charts are fucked and, to be honest, I’m kinda happy newer songs get to do well instead of the usual big three or four, but this chart rigging is insanely obvious and I remain entirely bemused they’re doing nothing about it, unless they’re being paid shitloads of money to look away. I’m biased but something new like DJ Play a Christmas Song appears to be doing far better organically and should be benefitting properly as a result.
 
It is appalling, and as I said before, the OCC are entirely complicit in it by this stage.

I guess where it gets difficult is that Amazon are just playing a game which has by now been well established (and accepted), and playing it very well. And it's not like Spotify aren't trying it either - Winter Wonderland by Laufey is a Spotify exclusive, has been given the #7 spot on their biggest playlist. Amazon are just playing a lot harder.

None of this is to let Amazon off the hook - and it absolutely needs looking at if it's true that they are pushing Ryder too hard, and suppressing the competition.

And to add to Shee's point about being happy new songs get a look in rather than the usual big three or four (although I'd contend it's quite a few more than that by now), isn't that another reason to separate out the old ones (any on ACR I'd say - they already have a measure) into their own festive chart?

I suppose doing so may leave the chart more vulnerable to the like of Sam Ryder this year, but that could be accounted for by other rules, should they want to address it. And it would allow songs like Cher this year to become a proper big hit this year (if you took out all the usual old ones this year, I imagine Cher would be top ten), and given a better chance of establishing itself as a recurring favourite.

And it may reinvigorate the Christmas chart a bit more because other acts may be more inclined to release Christmas songs (or even just release decent stuff at all in Nov and Dec), because they won't be competing with a chart which is so largely dominated by the same songs every year.
 
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