Daily Mail

Does this settle that best Xmas song row?

- By Victoria Allen Science Correspond­ent

ALL of us probably have a favourite Christmas song we’ll play on repeat throughout the festive period.

But for families arguing over whether Wham! or the Pogues is the best, an academic has provided ‘some facts and figures’ to settle the debate once and for all.

And his nine-year statistica­l analysis, taking in charts and streaming, revealed Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You is the nation’s No1 festive soundtrack.

She pipped the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York on account of her 1994 hit having spent two weeks longer in the Top 100.

But modern musicians hoping to create the next classic Christmas anthem continue to try in vain. Dr Craig Anderson, from the University of Glasgow, who compiled a top 20, found all but three were written more than two decades ago – and even one of those, Michael Buble’s It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, is a cover.

Writing on website The Conversati­on, the statistici­an said: ‘When Slade sang, “Does your granny always tell you, that the old songs are the best?”, it seems as though she was right.’ Dr Anderson, whose work is usually concerned with mapping disease, worked on the definitive Christmas song list in his spare time, aiming to make the debate less subjective. His team allocated points based on position and time spent in the charts and, so newer songs were not discrimina­ted against, the figures were adjusted to account for post-2007 releases.

Wham!, Wizzard and Slade formed the rest of the top 5. Dr Anderson said: ‘Now, when the debate about festive songs starts while you’re rocking around the Christmas tree or driving home for Christmas, you can add some facts and figures to the discussion.’

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