Countdown to Christmas and Christmas Hits

Around this time of year, articles start to appear in newspapers and magazines, at least in the on-line editions, about Christmas Hits.  The articles tend to cover Christmas Hits up until about a decade ago, which is about the last time that what was Number One at Christmas had any impact on the national consciousness.

The articles allow the reporter to give their views on what the magic formula might be for achieving a seasonal classic, and to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in music journalism in an age where everyone is invited to review tracks on streaming services, and somebody with 70 years in the business, a fuck-off vinyl collection and a byline in ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘Kerrang’ or a purple-printed stinky fanzine has no more critical clout on iTunes than somebody who reviews the last Bowie album as ‘* Ya basik’.

Such articles also allow the artists in question to contribute a quote that reminds readers that they are still alive, and makes an impassioned plea for any remaining fans to come see the tour, tickets still available.  This is usually finessed into a remark about the Christmas Hit still being popular when they perform their December shows.

July gigs. Not so much.

There is also a list of favourite or most popular Christmas Hits, and again these usually run up to about ten years ago before stopping being a thing.

This is for two reasons.

The first is that while dark forces have always been at work in the music industry, it was only when they started judging talent shows, signing the winners to their labels and promoting the hell out of them to make sure they had sensational sales during the lucrative Christmas period, that people started to resent the hell out of it and journalists wanted to deny such people the oxygen of publicity, with even ITV restricting their activities to two hours of prime time on a Saturday and a results show on a Sunday.

The other reason is that on-line sales of music buggered the Christmas Single.

The reason the Christmas Single mattered was that it outsold all other record sales.  This was because people who never buy records would go to Woolies and buy a single for their young relatives.

Woolies going tits up was a disaster for more than the employees, the High Street and for people who liked to shoplift pick n’ mix on a Saturday.  It was a problem for record sales.  Woolies is a safe environment for the shopper.  Our Price, less so.

Downloads buggered things further.  Grandparents, even silver surfers, are unlikely to gift the kiddies a particular song.  More likely they will give them a pair of socks.  That’s right, they know iTunes vouchers exist but fuck you Jane and Johnny, I don’t recall a single costing £15.  When they bring out the 99p iTunes voucher, text us, we’ll be on a Viking River Cruise.

Then came streaming and who, basically, had a fucking clue about what constituted a record sale anymore?  The last time I checked, record sales consisted of physical sales, downloads, streams, airplay, mentions in the playgrounds of state funded schools, and the passing from one kid to another of a cassette with the song taped from the wireless with the DJ talking over the first and last ten seconds.

The Christmas Number One hasn’t mattered for many years now, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that, rightly, everyone can listen to what they want to listen to and that the cultural measures like the chart countdown don’t really matter anymore.

The second?  Nobody is recording decent, bespoke, jingly, seasonal Christmas hits anymore.  Adele, step up.

The last important Christmas pop music event?  George Michael, who wrote and recorded the perfect Christmas Hit, died on 25 December 2016.  I remember turning on Radio 2 on Boxing Day, a tribute show, learning the news.  It was sad, it was uplifting, it was a radio community and a demonstration that radio is a medium like no other for marking these moments.

Oh, and ‘Fairytale of New York’ is the greatest Christmas Hit.  Unbelievably, some have sought to criticise it recently.  Beware these people.