39 years following its original release, Wham!‘s “Last Christmas” finally secured U.K.’s Christmas #1 single!
In prior decades, England’s highly competitive Christmas Number One revisited such classic rockers, pop singers, and festive tracks as Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” yet in recent years, the top slot has been dominated by reality competition singers, YouTubers, charity singles, and Ed Sheeran.
Proof positive that history repeats itself, as America’s Brenda Lee sits atop the Hot 100 with “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” 65 years after that single’s release, Wham!’s “Last Christmas” finally hit #1, some four decades after “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” – which also featured George Michael – assumed the #1 slot 1984.
About their current #1, Wham! band member Andrew Ridgeley recently stated via The Guardian), “George would be beside himself [that] after all of these years, [we’ve] finally obtained Christmas No 1. Yog [George] said that he wrote ‘Last Christmas’ with the intention of writing a Christmas No 1. It’s mission accomplished!” “It was a huge disappointment to us both when it didn’t reach No 1 [in 1984] because, in our opinion, it was nailed-on… Thwarted for many years subsequent to that – the perennial bridesmaid – over recent years it seems it’s become part of the fabric of Christmas for a lot of people.”
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Author: Al Denté
Photo: Louise Palanker