Remembering the weirdest festive No 1 tussle of all
Cliff Richard had long dominated the festive charts – but in 1990, along came a tough young contender: Vanilla Ice. Bytom Fordy
In December 1989, Cliff Richard’s publishing company, Patch Music, held its annual Christmas party – a lunchtime shindig to which singer/ songwriter Chris Eaton came armed with a cassette tape. On the tape was a demo of Saviour’s Day. Just one year later, the song would battle for the Christmas No 1 spot in one of the most surreal festive showdowns ever: Cliff Richard vs Vanilla Ice. It was a run-off that epitomised both the joy and madness of that annual race, back in the years when it really mattered (ie, people bought real physical singles in their hundreds of thousands).
Chris Eaton had already been writing songs for Cliff Richard for several years. He penned, among many others, Cliff ’s 1982 Christmas tune Little Town, which reached No 11. Giving Cliff a song had become a sort of festive tradition. “I would go down for the Christmas party every year,” says Eaton. “It was common for me to go with a new song to play to Cliff, to see if he might be interested in recording it.”
Cliff – already a 30-year veteran by that time – was enjoying a career high. In 1988, he beat Kylie and Jason’s Especially for You to the Christmas No 1 with jingly croon-fest Mistletoe and Wine and topped the album chart with a best-of record, Private Collection.
“His success was pretty much unprecedented,” says Eaton. “Mistletoe and Wine was No 1, the album was No 1, the video was No 1 … right across the board, he was the man.” Eaton found Cliff at the party and they went to Cliff ’s car to listen to the new song.
“We went downstairs and sat in his Rolls,” says Eaton. “We listened to a minute – to the first chorus – and Cliff stopped the cassette. He turned to me and said: ‘This is a Christmas No 1.’”
Those were big words coming from Cliff Richard, whose status as one of the kings of British Christmastime was already well established. And Cliff, in his kingly wisdom, was right.
To the contemporary ear – and like most pop classics which make up the sound of the Great British Christmas – Saviour’s Day is joyously naff stuff: a grandiose hymn-turned-anthem with thumping, Celtic-inspired production, one of the all-time great Crimbo key changes (see also: Shakin’ Stevens), and infectious pan pipes.
Saviour’s Day, released on November 26 1990, became one of Cliff ’s highest new entries.
“It went straight into the chart at No 6,” says Eaton. “Now, it’s all about download power. These were the days when you had to release a single weeks before, just to make sure it had a chance to build momentum.
Then, as Saviour’s Day climbed to No 3, it became a three-way race with Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby and Madonna’s Justify My Love, which led Cliff in positions 1 and 2 respectively. But the week before Christmas, Saviour’s Day overtook Madonna to take the No 2 spot. Cliff and Vanilla Ice were now unlikely Christmas combatants.
Vanilla Ice would be tough to crack. Ice Ice Baby was a global hit: it topped
the Billboard chart in the US and had already spent four weeks at No 1 in the UK.
Ice Ice Baby was a thumping piece of pop, combining white rapper Vanilla Ice’s safe hip-hop styling – “All right stop, collaborate, and listen!” – and the baseline to Queen’s Under Pressure. For pop fans, Ice Ice Baby was an easy entry into the growing rap and dance genres.
Finally, just two days before Christmas, on Sunday December 23, Saviour’s Day overtook Ice Ice Baby to nab the No 1 spot. Eaton puts it down to Cliff ’s last-minute buyers. “Once Christmas starts to loom, his fans come onboard,” says Eaton. “He’s such an iconic figure at Christmas.”
The notion of Cliff Richard vs Vanilla Ice now seems brilliantly bizarre, but is typical of bonkers Christmas chart
battles from over the years. Just as there’s no formula for what makes a Christmas hit – the disparate likes of Jimmy Osmond, the Human League, the Flying Pickets, the Spice Girls, Bob the Builder, interchangeable X Factor winners, and ( shudder) Ladbaby have all claimed the top spot – the race to Christmas No 1 has been similarly unformulaic.
The public consciousness tends to think of battles between undisputed Christmas classics: Slade vs Wizzard in 1973; Band Aid vs Wham in 1984; or East 17 vs Mariah Carey in 1994. But more bizarre battles include Mr Blobby – whose mass hysteria-induced popularity could only result in a novelty record – beating Take That’s dreary ballad Babe in 1993; Michael Jackson’s Earth Song holding off Mike Flowers
Pops’ kitsch cover of Wonderwall in 1995; the Darkness’s Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) vs Gary Jules’s sombre Tears for Fears cover Mad World in 2003; and – most hilarious of all – Rage Against the Machine breaking the curse of The X Factor (temporarily) by shouting down Joe Mcelderry’s The Climb in 2009.
The success of Saviour’s Day also speaks to the curious, almost supernatural appeal of Cliff Richard at Christmas, and his power to fend off younger, far trendier artists – something of a festive tradition itself.
In 1988, the year of acid house and rave culture, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan were hardly cutting-edge cool, but the 20-year-old Aussies were major mainstream stars. Between them, they’d had five Stock Aitken
Waterman-produced songs in the top 10. But Cliff still held them off the Christmas No 1 spot with Mistletoe and Wine.
Two years later, Vanilla Ice was at the peak of his breakout success – perhaps the trendiest, most downwith-the-kids mainstream pop star in the world at that time. Still, he couldn’t fend off the Christian crooner.
Last month, the 80-year-old Cliff Richard entered the album chart at No 3 with Music… The Air That I Breathe (which includes Chris Eaton’s co-written track, Falling for You). It fell to No 21, but now it’s back to No 16. Is it Cliff ’s last-minute fans getting in the spirit again?
In this year, of all years, they may be rallying.