UK Christmas Number One's

I just finished watching the movie "Love Actually". One story line features aging rocker Billy Mack recording a dreadful new Christmas song he hopes will top the charts. I'm guessing that having a #1 song Christmas week in the UK is a pretty big deal, and I was wondering when this tradition began. Can any UK members enlighten me???

Thanks - Jim

 

Good question!, unfortunately i don't really know the answer . I had never thought it was a strictly british thing though, so.......

 

Found an archive link from the BBC site........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/1690079.stm

 

Love that movie! A real feel good movie.

"Remember kids don't buy drugs, become a pop star and they give them to you!"

 

Well I was very young in the sixties, but yes, having the Christmas number one is a big thing over here.

Here's a complete list....

http://www.everyhit.com/christmasnumber1.html

Back when The Beatles were around their "Xmas" songs were released end of Nov/early Dec because tracks took a couple or three weeks to get to number one.

It wasn't until the late seventies/early eighties that records started going in at number one (think the first was by The Jam).

So now songs are released on the Monday before the Sunday Xmas chart to get maximum impact - this has certainly been the case for the last decade .

Obviously, this year's number one was an exception (Band Aid 20), but I would imaging that record companies held off their releases so as not to compete!

Sadly there have been some stinkers make it to number one at Christmas and these days it doesn't need the 200,000 per week (as in the 60s) to make it to the top.

The two Elvis releases that made it to the top, two of the last three weeks, have sold around 21000 and then disappeared.

The irony is that back in 2003 the Billy Mack single was issued at Christmas - but only made number 26.

There have been one or two exceptions to the rule, in 2003 the UK number one was the fantastic "Mad World" by Michael Andrews/Gary Jules, which caught everybody by surprise!!!