It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all: Has streaming killed off the Christmas No.1 race?

by Mark Sutherland @ MW

December 21st 2017 at 6:00AM

 

 

I blame Love Actually.

 

The race for the Christmas No.1 between Blue and aging rocker Billy Mack, as depicted in the much-loved-if-actually-completely-terrible Christmas movie, has fixed a romanticised notion of the annual chart battle in the minds of the Great British Public. In Richard Curtis’ world, the entire nation is fixated on the No.1, every pop star is desperate to reach the top of the charts and any record is in with a chance.

 

That has, undoubtedly, been the case on a number of occasions over the years, albeit probably rather fewer than you imagine. But a quick glance at the latest midweeks reveals a rather more prosaic contest.

 

At least red hot favourite Ed Sheeran has made an effort, wheeling out the big guns for his duet versions and making a video that pays snowy homage to Wham!’s seminal Last Christmas promo. Somewhat ironically, that looks to have been enough to see off the campaign to get Last Christmas itself – denied the No.1 spot in 1984 by Band Aid – the festive chart-topper George Michael always deserved.

 

Yuletide standards by Mariah Carey and The Pogues are also heading back to the chart’s upper reaches off the back of gigantic streaming figures and, with the business now built on streaming, the influx of such old songs is now an annual event. What point is there trying to write a new Christmas song when the public is likely to just stream the classics non-stop instead anyway? Against such a backdrop, even heavyweight artists such as Sia and Gwen Stefani struggle to make an impression with new festive offerings.

 

Similarly, the once perennial British penchant for a novelty/charity single at this time of year doesn’t get a look-in nowadays (unless you count Big Shaq).

 

The rest of the Top 10 challengers are all regular releases that could have appeared at any time of the year. Nothing wrong with that, except that the UK Christmas Top 40 was once a riot of unpredictability. Now the hegemony of global streaming charts ensures that it’s pretty much the same as everyone else’s, taking away what used to be one of the industry’s key opportunities to engage with more casual music fans. If Rage Against The Machine took on Joe McElderry in 2017… well, neither would get anywhere near No.1 to be honest.

 

In the real world, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In the charts, however, it’s beginning to look a lot like any other time of year, actually…

 

 

 

Source: MW

MW conveniently forgetting that there is a big challenger for Ed from... himself (alongside Eminem of course), to play into the 'omg there is no race for #1 anymore!!!1' narrative.

 

This is much more of a race than most of the X-Factor years, even if it's obvious that 'Perfect' will be #1. It's not like last year where 'Rockabye' just sailed to Christmas #1 by default.

MW conveniently forgetting that there is a big challenger for Ed from... himself (alongside Eminem of course), to play into the 'omg there is no race for #1 anymore!!!1' narrative.

 

This is much more of a race than most of the X-Factor years, even if it's obvious that 'Perfect' will be #1. It's not like last year where 'Rockabye' just sailed to Christmas #1 by default.

 

Ah, yes - the song that is (as of yesterday) 13,540 combined sales behind and has no prospect of getting anywhere near. What a challenger and race it is!

I find it odd that folk think Christmas is over after Christmas Day and stop streaming in such huge numbers, it's the start of the 12 days of Christmas!

 

 

Agree totally!! People go with the commercial markets. Itll be summer holiday stuff in January!!

It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all: Has streaming killed off the Christmas No.1 race?

by Mark Sutherland @ MW

December 21st 2017 at 6:00AM

 

 

Bit harsh this anaylsis, at the end of the day if there was a song that was huge and broke through which was festive it would hit the top spot.

 

Sia and Gwen could yet become festive stables in the coming years even if they don't chart high!

Ah, yes - the song that is (as of yesterday) 13,540 combined sales behind and has no prospect of getting anywhere near. What a challenger and race it is!

My point was the gap between #1 and #2 was a lot bigger back when X-Factor and/or charity singles sailed to #1. The last real race we had was NHS Choir/Bieber.

My point was the gap between #1 and #2 was a lot bigger back when X-Factor and/or charity singles sailed to #1.

 

No it wasn't, you were stating that MW had deliberately left out Eminem/Ed as it is a bigger competitor than Rag 'n' Bone Man last year, yet that gap was <10K IIRC. The truth is, neither was really a competitor and there is no race... hence the average/low sales and interest.

 

I take your point about the X Factor years, but there were still races... Jeff Buckley v Alexandra Burke and RATM v Joe McElderry spring to mind.

Edited December 21, 20178 yr by Doctor Blind

There was some interest yesterday on media but they picked it up 2/3 days late!

No it wasn't, you were stating that MW had deliberately left out Eminem/Ed as it is a bigger competitor than Rag 'n' Bone Man last year, yet that gap was <10K IIRC. The truth is, neither was really a competitor and there is no race... hence the average/low sales and interest.

 

I take your point about the X Factor years, but there were still races... Jeff Buckley v Alexandra Burke and RATM v Joe McElderry spring to mind.

Point taken. It just felt like Clean Bandit had #1 default last year as there were no proper campaigns or new releases to attempt to push it off. This year we have Eminem's new release and the Wham! campaign.

i've stopped paying attention to Music Week's articles at this point. seems like they can never offer anything insightful to the table, just being constantly cynical about the state of the charts in a way that lacks any useful information (where is the logic behind the article?? they act as if it's 1996 - they full well know how dominant streaming is so what does complaining about it achieve?). i get that it's a bit dire but surely that defeats the object of their service lmfao??

i also think it's a stupidly wirtten article

agree they should at least have mentioned River

 

and funnily they seem to be obsessed in blaming streaming but actually this year perfect, river, wham, mariah, they're all kinda even on spotify and it's itunes what's making the difference with perfect selling double than river/wham and poor mariah selling nada ;)

Streaming slows things down but for me the last 2 xmas no1 weeks have been better because we actual have a song that's popular with the public at the top spot. A lot of other no1s over the past decade have been here today gone tomorrow campaigns/protests/novelty/choir songs.

Yeah, it's a badly written article - I think we can all agree on that. I don't see River as a Christmas Number One contender personally, it just so happens to be released as part of the album campaign but those buying it are mainly for the song ( a bit like Rockabye last year) not to see it get 'Christmas #1', whereas Perfect was definitely targeted as the definitive 'Christmas Number One' campaign from 1st December..

 

What makes it an exciting race is large sales and unpredictability.. the combination of which have we had not since 2009 really.

Poorly written article but I agree with the point "Against such a backdrop, even heavyweight artists such as Sia and Gwen Stefani struggle to make an impression with new festive offerings".

Same could be said of Tom Chaplin and others that have released this year. The fact remains it has become harder for new music to break through into the Chart - whether it is Xmas music or music released at other times of the year. What used to separate the UK Chart from most others was the dynamic nature of it, now it has become (dare I say it in the Prediction thread) more Predictable. I think that is the essence of what he is saying, I think the word he used was 'prosaic' and that for me sums up some of the Chart battles at the moment (and that cannot be blamed on Ed Sheeran).

That MW article really is a load of waffle. Whilst I understand and agree with their point about new christmas songs struggling to make and impact, its no use pointing the finger of blame at streaming for what has already been a trend that the download era kicked off. Gwen and Sia hardly had a big promotional christmas single to kick things off. Coldplay only reached No.13 with their Christmas hit in 2010 despite it being used in loads of tv adverts and was a pretty good christmas song by all standards. I think only Adele would have a shot with a christmas themed song being no.1.

 

Also they are missing the fact that Michael Buble has managed to re-peak with a song from his 2011 Christmas album and I wouldn't mind betting one year he'll go top 10 with something from that album. Might be an old song but its still a modern take on it thats doing well.

 

As for the supposed "ruining of the christmas chart" where an earth was this analogy the past decade. The X Factor single handedly killed off any notion of the race to Christmas no1. The winning margin in most years was at least 100k over the next record. Thats hardly a close race. Yes they may have lost a handful of years due to some mad dash campaign, which was interesting the first time it happened. But after that every year some crappy charity record tried to do the same so unless you were X Factor or some choir you had no chance of getting anywhere near and nobody else bothered. I'm actually convinced thats why January saw a ton of blockbuster hits being released most years.

 

This year is the first since 2003 where there has actually been a chart battle between two non X Factor or charity singles and imo its totally refreshing and is what the christmas no.1 most years was all about. I can't remember many years at all in the late 90s or very early 00's where there was anything but normal songs fighting for the Xmas No.1 with a novelty hit thrown in somewhere. Rant over haha.

Edited December 21, 20178 yr by Supercell

but this year the chart battle for xmas #1 has been super interesting and unpredictable,

1 month before xmas we were all clueless, could mariah or wham do it? could perfect do it? even last Thu we were all speculating about Adele and if she was releasing? and then on Friday, same happened when River was released

so best and most unpredictable xmas #1 in years

Another interesting read on why Mariah is still Queen of the Christmas charts Mariah Christmas Queen Seems everyone has differing opinion on this subject either crediting the influence of streaming for older tracks, lack of newer songs from big Artists and the fact it is becoming harder to write an original Christmas song.

There are plenty of what I think of as classic Xmas songs that I'm surprised don't chart higher, for instance:

I Believe in Father Christmas

Christmas Wrapping (Or is it Rapping?)

Little Town

Stop the Cavilary (How do you spell that word?)

It's Christmas Time by Status Quo

 

And not to mention this year; Sia's Snowman (OK, I think it's considered more an album track in this instance, but it's my favourite from her album)

Christmas Wrapping is my absolute favourite, totally agree that it should be one of those doing better 😍

Stop The Cavalry seems like a much bigger Christmas song to me than what it actually is, not sure why. Christmas Wrapping, Sleigh Ride, 2000 Miles, Holly Jolly Christmas, Jingle Bell Rock, Feliz Navidad, Here Comes Santa Claus, & Mistletoe & Wine are all also somewhat Christmas classics (to me at least) that aren't doing much. I assume that's due to missing out on high positions / not being featured on any big Spotify playlists which is quite a shame.

 

Obviously there's then Jingle Bells and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town which are 100% Christmas classics - but no one choses to listen to those :lol: