A pretty bland one-horse race this year.

 

1. Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It's Christmas (1)

2. Ronan Keating feat Yusuf - Father And Son (NEW)

3. Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You (2)

4. Ice Cube feat Mack 10 & Ms Toi - You Can Do It (3)

5. Merrion, McCall & Kensit - I Got You Babe/Soda Pop (NEW)

6. Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath (4)

7. Lemar - If There's Any Justice (6)

8. Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (7)

9. Girls Aloud - I'll Stand By You (5)

10. Morrissey - I Have Forgiven Jesus (NEW)

11. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten (9)

12. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For (10)

13. Cliff Richard - I Cannot Give You My Love (NEW)

14. Nelly & Christina Aguilera - Tilt Ya Head Back (11)

15. Uniting Nations - Out Of Touch (13)

16. Snoop Dogg feat Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot (12)

17. Eminem - Just Lose It (14)

18. Robbie Williams - Misunderstood (8)

19. Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Numb/Encore (19)

20. Christina Aguilera feat Missy Elliott - Car Wash (17)

 

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21. Electric Six - Radio GaGa (New)

22. Goldie Lookin Chain - You Knows I Loves You Baby (NEW)

27. Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter (NEW)

28. 100 Percent feat Jennifer John - Just Can't Wait (Saturday) (NEW)

36. Blink 182 - Always (NEW)

37. Zutons - Confusion (NEW)

38. Skandi Girls - Do The Can Can (NEW)

50. Paul Holt - Fifty Grand For Christmas (35)

64. Hot Pantz - Give U One 4 Christmas (NEW)

69. Gene - Let Me Move On (NEW)

70. Fresh - Capture The Flag (NEW)

71. My Chemical Romance - Thank You For The Venom (NEW)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third version of Band Aid, Band Aid 20, surfaced in 2004, with many of the biggest stars of the day including Chris Martin, Robbie Williams, Dido, Busted, Sugababes, Will Young and Bono again, and it was of course an obvious No.1 at the time, when charity singles were still a success, but the scale of its success was enormous. In a month it sold over a million copies, quite consistently over its first four weeks (293k, 288k, 231k, 232k) before tailing off - huge at any time but sales were in the gutter in 2004 when downloads hadn't yet been integrated and CD singles sales were dying off. Only a handful of other songs all year even cleared 100k in a week. The Christmas chart was Band Aid 20's third week out - it would eventually be knocked off by the first X Factor winner, Steve Brookstein, who debuted at No.2 on Band Aid 20's fourth week and then climbed up in the New Year.

 

In 1995, Boyzone's cover of Cat Stevens' Father And Son was a long-running hit around Christmas, and Ronan repeated the trick nine years later, this time with Cat - now called Yusuf - in tow. Clearly a decent success from his 10 Years of Hits album, but not as big as the Boyzone version and no match for Band Aid 20. Kylie completed the Christmas top three with I Believe In You, the first of two singles released from the Ultimate Kylie compilation. Sales got so low just after this that a couple of weeks later it would be No.3 again on about 7k sales.

 

Other top ten debuts included a cover of I Got You Babe by Avid Merrion (Bo Selecta - in the Christmas top five for the second consecutive year), with Davina McCall and Patsy Kensit, and Morrissey sneaking his fourth top ten hit of the year with the festive joy of I Have Forgiven Jesus. The final top 20 debut was Christmas chart mainstay Cliff Richard with I Cannot Give You My Love.

 

Big names might have avoided going up directly against Band Aid 20, making it a bit of a one-horse race, but there were plenty of other smaller new entries, including a Queen cover by Electric Six, a great song that went on to become a classic for Damien Rice, a dance version of the theme music to Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, and rock hits from Blink 182, Zutons, and the chart debut from My Chemical Romance.

 

It's a noughties Christmas so there were some more novelty songs of course, courtesy of Skandi Girls, who were literally doing the can can, Paul Holt, an X Factor reject who was trying to prove a point to Simon Cowell to win £50k if he got a No.1 single (it failed spectacularly), and the best new Christmas song that charted that year, the delightfully tacky Give U One 4 Christmas by Hot Pantz.

I’ll add more detailed thoughts in a bit but wow that top 20 is a combo of great pop and the trash I would come to expect from the early-mid 00s. :lol:

In 2004 year I had the most festive top 3 in history of my chart.

 

1. Hot Pantz - Give U One 4 Christmas

2. Skandi Girls - Do The Can Can

3. Merrion, McCall & Kensit - I Got You Babe

Band Aid 20 a solid second for me in rankings of the Band Aid songs.

 

Do quite like that Ronan one even with it being one he already did a decade earlier with Boyzone. Kylie rounds a goodish top 3.

 

'I Got You Babe' cover isn't great or anything but didn't mind it too much either.

 

Lemar and Green Day repping the good tracks from the remainder of the top 10 for me along with one of Destiny's Childs better tracks there.

 

I see Daz Sampson there in some form in the Top 20 too, 'Out Of Touch' is a tune and the Natasha and Gwen songs are good as well of course.

 

Unsurprisingly don't care for any of the other new entries that week. That Electric Six cover is terrible and a bore from Cliff! MCR the only okay one but also not a highlight from them.

Spectacular sales for Band Aid 20 especially considering the sales climate indeed. It's wild to take a look at the weekly retro charts from 20 years ago at the moment, usually posted in the Friday Chart Show thread, where 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' is dwarfing everything else that is barely scraping past 5 figures. I only ever seek out the original but do prefer this iteration to the second attempt.

 

My favourites around at the moment are: 'I Believe In You', 'Lose My Breath', 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams', 'Unwritten' and 'What You Waiting For?'

Loved these:

 

3. Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You (2)

6. Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath (4)

8. Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (7)

12. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For (10)

 

But most of all, I absolutely loved The Blower's Daughter

 

 

Spectacular sales for Band Aid 20 especially considering the sales climate indeed. It's wild to take a look at the weekly retro charts from 20 years ago at the moment, usually posted in the Friday Chart Show thread, where 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' is dwarfing everything else that is barely scraping past 5 figures.

 

Yeah, it was just under 28k for Ronan and Yusuf this week compared to just over 231k for Band Aid 20, which is absolutely mad. Band Aid 20 sold over eight times as many as the song in second, and probably outsold the rest of the top 20 combined although I don't have to hand the sales figures for positions 11-20. There was zero hype for a race this year because nobody could compete anyway, and also it would have been a bad look for a big name to try to go against Band Aid as there was still so much goodwill around it at the time. I'm not really convinced even the biggest name in music at the time could have mounted any kind of challenge anyway because sales had dived so much since the year before.

 

Apparently a lot of bookies stopped accepting bets on the market as it was such a foregone conclusion, or had a Christmas number two market open.

 

Ronan was favourite in October that year, presumably before details of Band Aid 20 came to light: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3743196.stm

For Band Aid 20, Dizzee's rap is iconic.

 

'Lose My Breath' is my favourite Destiny's Child hit probably, the production is quite fast and dance focused for R&B at the time.

 

Don't mind that Ronan and Yusuf duet its a good ballad but I prefer the original.

 

Electric Six were good but I don't like their version of Radio GaGa much, I appreciate that they tried to make it different though.

 

I remember the Christina and Missy Elliott version of 'Car Wash'; I already knew and liked the original Rose Royce song.

 

Its good to see a dance hit still in the Christmas top 20. 'Out of Touch' is good (and at the time I much preferred it to the harder Clubland style dance that had dominated before it)

 

The 2005 Christmas top 20 dance hit will be more nostalgic though so I prefer it to 'Out Of Touch' now (and it also sounds more wintry).

Edited December 9, 2024Dec 9 by TheSnake

I remember owning 9 of the top 20 on CD.

 

1. Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It's Christmas (1)

2. Ronan Keating feat Yusuf - Father And Son (NEW)

3. Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You (2)

4. Ice Cube feat Mack 10 & Ms Toi - You Can Do It (3)

5. Merrion, McCall & Kensit - I Got You Babe/Soda Pop (NEW)

6. Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath (4)

7. Lemar - If There's Any Justice (6)

8. Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (7)

9. Girls Aloud - I'll Stand By You (5)

10. Morrissey - I Have Forgiven Jesus (NEW)

11. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten (9)

12. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For (10)

13. Cliff Richard - I Cannot Give You My Love (NEW)

14. Nelly & Christina Aguilera - Tilt Ya Head Back (11)

15. Uniting Nations - Out Of Touch (13)

16. Snoop Dogg feat Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot (12)

17. Eminem - Just Lose It (14)

18. Robbie Williams - Misunderstood (8)

19. Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Numb/Encore (19)

20. Christina Aguilera feat Missy Elliott - Car Wash (17)