Revealed: The top formula for festive hit

MUSIC RESEARCHERS have crunched the numbers on Christmas songs to find the perfect formula for a festive hit.

Experts at a UK music label looked at every Christmas number one from the last 50 years to see what they have in common and determined that the Pet Shop Boys’ Always On My Mind came closest to being the quintessential tune for the holidays.

“I think we’re a long way from an algorithmically-generated Christmas number one,” said Howard Murphy, founder of Ostereo which conducted the research.

“But certain characteristics do make a song more likely to resonate with audiences at Christmas,” he added.

For a song to hit the top spot on Christmas Day it needs to be three minutes and 57 seconds, in the key of G major, played at 114 beats-per-minute and performed by a 27-year-old solo artist, researchers claim.

Other key trends among the songs analysed were that the majority were ballads.

Mr Murphy said: “You can’t turn an average song into a hit at any time of year – never mind Christmas – so adding sleigh bells to a Christmas song won’t make a difference if the song isn’t already great.”