The Christmas #1 Story

 

"Having earlier this year marked the 60th anniversary of the first British #1 with its season devoted to the single, the BBC takes the inevitable first step of celebrating 60 years of Christmas #1s. It seems every pop documentary is now required by law to include Pete Waterman, and he is jonied in the line-up of pundits by DJs Tony Blackburn, Edith Bowman and popstar turned preacher Richard Coles. In a programme that perhaps pays too little attention to the novelty and children's records that topped the Yuletide charts, the other contributors are hit-makers, from Johnny Mathis and Cliff Richard to Alexandra Burke."

 

From The Sunday Times' Culture magazine

 

Is anyone going to watch this? :D

I am! Should be a good programme :D

Yep, I'm gonna give it a watch too!

Gonna watch in a mo.

On now! :cheer:

I managed to catch the last 1/3rd - from c.1988 onwards. I'll have to remember to watch it again in full on iPlayer.

I assume Paul Gambaccini was otherwwise engaged when they invited him to take part. It was a pretty good programme although I did have to reach for the mute button when Whitney started screeching and wailing her way through her effort and again when the Burke destroyed Hallelujah.

I found it very entertaining, I did cringe at all the glam rock, Sweet, Mud, Slade, and the two novelty tracks, and I had to mute the TV when Renee & Renato came on. It was fun watching all the related Xmas #1s, like the classic christmas tracks, no one makes christmas tracks no more, its all reality/charity #1s. I really forgotten that Slade spent 5 weeks at #1, it was knocked off the following year in Mid Jan, which I find very strange having a christmas hit going well into 1974.

 

Loved the Human League track.

I found it very entertaining, I did cringe at all the glam rock, Sweet, Mud, Slade, and the two novelty tracks, and I had to mute the TV when Renee & Renato came on. It was fun watching all the related Xmas #1s, like the classic christmas tracks, no one makes christmas tracks no more, its all reality/charity #1s. I really forgotten that Slade spent 5 weeks at #1, it was knocked off the following year in Mid Jan, which I find very strange having a christmas hit going well into 1974.

 

Loved the Human League track.

I thought the show claimed it spent 9 weeks at No 1? :wacko:

I found it very entertaining, I did cringe at all the glam rock, Sweet, Mud, Slade, and the two novelty tracks, and I had to mute the TV when Renee & Renato came on. It was fun watching all the related Xmas #1s, like the classic christmas tracks, no one makes christmas tracks no more, its all reality/charity #1s. I really forgotten that Slade spent 5 weeks at #1, it was knocked off the following year in Mid Jan, which I find very strange having a christmas hit going well into 1974.

 

Loved the Human League track.

From the chart commentary two weeks ago...

 

The other two re-entries are both from 1973. The number one song that Christmas was Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, a song which eventually reached the million sales mark several years later. While Christmas songs now tend to drop out of the chart before the decorations come down, this song held on to the top spot until the middle of January and didn’t leave the top 40 until mid-February. It’s back again this week at number 35.

I thought the show claimed it spent 9 weeks at No 1? :wacko:

I thought they said nine weeks but maybe we misheard :huh:

I thought they said nine weeks but maybe we misheard :huh:

 

I heard 9 weeks, was thinking maybe it was a mistake and it was 9 weeks top 10.

I missed the programme but for Slade - the single spent 9 weeks in the chart in 1973/1974, perhaps they got confused? There's usually a bad piece of research for these programmes...

I found it very entertaining, I did cringe at all the glam rock, Sweet, Mud, Slade, and the two novelty tracks, and I had to mute the TV when Renee & Renato came on.

I was just praying Gary Glitter didn't have a Christmas Number One!

 

-

 

I seem to remember Chart Stats saying Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody had more weeks at number one than it actually had when you clicked on the "list of number ones".

I thought they said nine weeks but maybe we misheard :huh:

 

They definitely said that it was nine weeks.

 

-x-

 

I loved the programme! I thought that it was a good piece of British cultural history. :D I loved most of the Christmas #1s as well, my favourite #1 was The Human League's Don't You Want Me though. :wub:

Great show, just watched it on iPlayer. I know it was universally panned on here but I always did and still do absolutely adore the Military Wives song!

I thoroughly enjoyed the programme too - christmas songs are the reason i got interested in the charts.

 

And yes Slade spent 5 weeks at no1. I dont understand how its so hard to do research on this sort of thing. If your going to do a history of the christmas single?

 

I enjoyed the stuff i didnt know about like the 50s/60s stuff about how british 50s artists copied everything from america and it wasnt until the 70s when the british xmas traditions began having songs written about them. So are xmas traditions all came from the US?!

 

They did skip a few important songs out like claiming the commercial view of xmas no1s started in the 1973 race with Slade vs Wizzard when Happy Xmas (War is Over) got to no2 in 1972!

I thought the show claimed it spent 9 weeks at No 1? :wacko:

 

They did, I went to check my records and its 5 weeks

 

Great show, just watched it on iPlayer. I know it was universally panned on here but I always did and still do absolutely adore the Military Wives song!

I love it too! :wub: Must check out their albums.

 

It's great that they are one of the most successful choirs - two number one singles, a number one album and another Top 5 album! :lol:

I love the Military Wives song as well! :wub: It's one of my favourite Christmas #1s. :D