‘Who’s Tom Walker?’: an all-ages guide to Christmas Top of the Pops 2019
Sitting down to watch Top of the Pops on Christmas Day with your family is a festive tradition of sorts. Less depressing than the Queen’s Speech, funnier than Mrs Brown’s Boys, it’s on at the perfect time of 11.35am – after breakfast, before lunch, but best get that special Christmas biscuit tin out just in case. To help avoid any awkward family chat, here’s how to explain all the acts to your grandparents.
James Blunt You remember him: nice posh bloke, always on Radio 2. Had that huge hit 15 years ago and has refused to go away ever since. He’s 20 years older than anyone else on this show, so is probably having the other acts explained to him in the exact same way.
Dermot Kennedy, Jack Savoretti and Tom Walker Looking at the Christmas TOTP lineup you’d think that pop in 2019 was dominated by white men with guitars. It wasn’t. Interestingly, Dermot Kennedy, Jack Savoretti and Tom Walker aren’t exactly the same person – look, Tom is wearing a hat! Dermot is Irish! Jack is the one that Mum fancies! OK, no, our mistake.
They’re all just a slight variation on James Blunt.
The Script You know the white men with guitars we just described? Put them in a band and that’s the Script. Inexplicably popular, the frontman,
Danny-from-the-Script, was a judge on The Voice; the other two blokes you wouldn’t be able to pick out of a lineup if they mugged you and left their driving licences behind.
Lewis Capaldi Honestly, we promise: there wasmore to pop in 2019 than white men with guitars. Lewis Capaldi is like Cliff Richard but if he knew “the social medias”. Like Ed Sheeran but put through a hot wash. Like a meme got out of control and was somehow made human. No, Nan, we’ll cover memes later.
Mabel Mabel should be huge: her mum is a pop legend (Neneh Cherry!), Don’t Call Me Up is a banger and she’s written this year’s most depressing Christmas song, Loneliest Time of the Year. And yet … here she is, on the Christmas TOTP with a load of B-listers. Fingers crossed she’ll be too big for all this in 2020.
Jax Jones & Ella Henderson, Sigala ft Becky Hill As a rule, most songs fit into one of two categories: massive party bangers and songs that make you cry. It’s called the Mariah Carey rule. But now, pop has a mysterious third category: playlist filler. Songs that sound the same, but with different reality show also-rans on vocals. You hear them everywhere – local radio, Spotify playlists, in lifts, in shops – but they’re so generic, you will never be able to sing them back or name them. Conveniently, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson have made tracks with both Jax Jones and Sigala, so this booking is extremely cost-effective.