HOW DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE?
The battle to top the charts is on. heat investigates how to get there… at investigates how to get there…
As well as making a fantastic quiz round, Christmas No1s have a special place in the UK’S pop culture history.
The battle kicked off in 1973 with Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody narrowly beating Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. And who could forget the Spice Girls dominating the Yuletide charts with a hat trick between 1996 and 1998? Or when Bob the Builder told us we could fix it back in the year 2000? And don’t even get us started on Band Aid one, two and three. But just how difficult is it to secure that top spot?
Gunning for it this year are a real mishmash of artists. Robbie Williams is the bookies’ favourite to secure the spot with a single from his first-ever Christmas album. Global sensation Little Mix have also thrown their hats in the ring with single One I’ve Been Missing. A couple of classics are in the running, too – thanks to the film of the same name, Wham’s Last Christmas has a chance, while Mariah
Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You always enjoys a storming comeback over the festive period.
I HAVE A DREAM
One person shocking us all with a festive offering for 2019 is Chris Kamara. And no one was more surprised than the presenter and former footballer himself, who admits he thought it was a “wind up”when he was approached to record the album Here’s To Christmas. Adam Greenup from Silva Screen Recordings – who’s in charge of the campaign to get
Kammy to No1 – tells heat, “We had seen the effortless charm and amazing personality of Kammy and figured if he could sing, then he would marry with Christmas crooning effortlessly. We started recording and it quickly became apparent that he could sing. He could really sing.”
Providing further insight into the process of trying to get the coveted No1 spot, Adam adds, “[The campaign] started in April, but it’s cooking on gas now. The album debuted in the Top Ten in its first week, just behind Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi and Westlife.”
Kammy – who, incidentally, will turn 61 on 25 December (yes, really) – earmarked the album’s title track to be pushed for No1, and Adam is hoping the song’s Christmas message will capture the hearts of the nation. And the perfect recipe for the top spot? “At least one mistletoe and Santa reference,” he says. “Plus, some jingling church bells and Kammy’s dreamy baritone, of course.”
MAD WORLD
As well as live performances and TV interviews – which Adam explains are vital for getting both the single and the personality behind it across to viewers – social media can play a big part in chart success these days. Joe Mcelderry, who won The X Factor in 2009, remembers how the internet played a pivotal role in keeping him off the top spot. After a run of X Factor winners securing No1, a viral campaign against the show managed to get Rage Against The Machine’s extremely festive (not) Killing In The Name to smash the charts. “Twitter was a new thing, Facebook was big and they had the leverage. It was a brilliant
publicity stunt,” explains Joe. “I actually got a call telling me I was No 1, but we held off the Champagne because we’d been watching the numbers and it didn’t feel right. Then they phoned back to say, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake.’”
A MOMENT LIKE THIS
No one knows the power of social media better than the man who shocked us all last Christmas with his chart-topping single We Built This City… On Sausage Rolls. Mark Hoyle – who you might know better as blogger and Youtuber Ladbaby – says he didn’t actually set out to record the Christmas No1. “The idea came about from Twitter originally,” the 32 year old tells heat. “[A fan] saw that I had a deep love for sausage rolls. They tweeted me, saying, ‘You should release the song We Built This City, but change the lyrics to sausage rolls.’ I thought, ‘Why not? This could be fun!’”
Mark had no idea how a bit of “fun” would turn into a chart battle between himself, Ava Max and Ariana Grande. “I hoped it would make Top 40 – that was my goal. I wanted to tell all of my friends that I was a pop star. It snowballed!”
While only a few years ago, artists would have aimed to rack up as many TV appearances as possible in December for maximum exposure, Mark is fully aware that his social following was a huge help. “Without a doubt, we got there because of the incredible following we have,” he tells heat. “Our videos on Facebook alone reach about 10million a week, which is just insane. But a big part of it for us was to use that
power for good and for the right reasons. We didn’t just want to do this for our own sake. It was obviously about making a lot of people laugh, but we also hoped to use our audience for the right reason.”
Mark – along with wife Roxanne and their two sons Phoenix and Kobe – donated all the proceeds from the track to food-bank charity The Trussell Trust. Last year, the couple raised enough to buy 70,000 emergency food packets, and this year they’re hoping to bag an even greater amount with the proceeds of their new single I Love Sausage Rolls – a take on Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ’N’ Roll.
And, in case you were wondering, Mark isn’t sick of sausage rolls quite yet. “I had a week off last January,” he tells us. “But then I came back strong.” ■