every christmas we're rockin', rockin' all the way to the bank

ho ho ho

well, 'tis the season, look you see, for me to moan and groan and be all (as) old (as i am), complaining about how this, that and the other are "not what they used to be". in this instance, however, it might just be that i am far from alone with this complaint. 

yes, but of course this is a grumble about, with it being (at time of publishing) that time of year, how the Christmas number one is no longer as "special" or as "important" as it once was. sure, this is in fitting with the fact that the "singles" chart is now an irrelevance, since it is no longer based on sales and few release actual singles anyway. also, of course, the entire importance and point of the singles chart was desecrated and destroyed when they let that twat Ed Sheridan (or whatever) completely corrupt it, having all the songs off his dull album with a dull name qualify for the chart, then changed the rules so that no one else could do it. 

indeed, the above is some of what to expect in my moans and groans. but i shall, however, also try and have a look at the where, when and why the concept of having the number one single at Christmas was a big deal. but first, an image of Bad News performing Cashing In On Christmas. 

no, alas, sadly, Cashing In On Christmas by Bad News was not a Christmas number one, or Christmas top ten or twenty single. or thirty. maybe the marketing was all wrong, or just vast swathes of the British music buying public have no taste at all. 

to stay on (relatively) safe ground for me, as in letting me write from a point of view that i might actually know a little of, i've opted (or elected) to stick with the Christmas number one singles of the 80s. narrowing that down, i mean any year of which the first 75% of the numbers were 198. before i looked it up, i challenged myself to name all of them from that decade. i only recalled, for what it is worth, the last seven, and did so in order. so yay, bravo me. unless you have already scrolled down to the images and had a look, you go ahead and feel free to try and guess them yourself. or not. 

festive drumroll if you please, for here, thanks to that smart Wikipedia thing (yes i made a donation to them so i guess i am all right using this), are the Christmas number ones of the eighties. 

something of an oddity which dawned on me, looking at this, was that for all the competition in respect of Christmas themed singles being recorded and released, not as many "Christmasy" songs as you might think claimed the top spot. right off the bat, the yuletide number ones from 1981 and 1987 would have been big, massive huge hits whenever they were released, for they were, are, and forever shall be, outstanding works of pop music. 

my suspicion is that it would be quite (as in very) boring to go through each of the number ones listed above. but, that said, a lovely piece of trivia for the 1985 one. just one of those pop facts which seem to forever float around in my head, so let me place it here to avoid it being lost with me, one day.

it was so that Merry Christmas Everyone by everyone's favourite self styled 'Welsh Elvis', Shakin' Stevens, was all set and ready to compete and contend to be the Christmas number one precisely one year before it became so. the management of Mr Stevens knew this was a solid hit, but were hesitant about the chances when it looked like the 1984 Christmas top spot would be a fight between Wham! (Last Christmas) and the unexpected juggernaut which has spent some 28% of the year at number one, Frankie Goes To Hollywood (The Power Of Love). just as soon as Band Aid was announced, recorded and released, the management of Mr Stevens persuaded him to pull the single, delaying the release for a year. as wise a bit of guidance, and indeed management, as you shall ever find in the history of popular music. 

one surprising, or "odd one out" on that list of ten sits centrally, for 1986 is kind of sort of in the central like middle part of the decade. not sure how or why this soul / proper r & b / rock jive classic got a re-release, but i do recall most people being a lot more impressed than i was with the "claymation" video which the song had, and which i think the proliferation of broadcast helped sell the (make no mistake, great) song. 

what took me quite by surprise when i looked was the fact that the Christmas top forty for 1986 was virtually bereft of any sort of festive themed single. as in, the only song in the official chart (at least up to 40) to even partially reference the subject of the season was Santa Claus Is On The Dole by Spitting Image, a single not quite as good as The Chicken Song. make of that statement what you will. 

no, sorry, no idea if it was the case that by 1986 all the pop stars were "Christmased out" and had no wish to do a 'novelty' record, or if it was so that we, the singles buying public, had simply grown tired of such records being added to our collections. perhaps (maybe) a combination of the two. mostly the former, i think. from what i recall Frankie vaguely threw Warriors Of The Wasteland in the direction of the charts just before that time of year, and surprisingly there was no Space Sex Santa Christmas Baby or similar off of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. also, maybe by this point all of the "big" artists really had no need to try and tap the lucrative Christmas market, for they were coining in royalties from the unexpected (yet very welcome) surge in back catalogue sales, inspired by appearing on Band Aid or at Live Aid and facilitated by the dawn of the CD. 

and yes, once again from what i remember of it all, we did kind of assume that the 1988 number one was a sort of "swan song" farewell off of Sir Cliff. it was assumed that he, like many other artists to have found fame in the 60s, would probably be retiring quite soon. there is every chance his new album shall be the number one album this Christmas (2020, for clarity). 

exactly where, or when, did the importance attached to the Christmas number one fall off? very much a matter that is eye of the beholder, in truth. i would argue that it has remained an important badge of honour for any (at least UK) artist (or band) to claim they held the festive top spot, but by the nineties i don't think many, or any, went off and recorded a specific Christmas tune. 

for we, the record buying public, it was probably the latter years of the 90s that we all went "well, you know what, this has been hijacked, let us not bother so much". the last three years of that decade, and thus that century, saw the Spice Girls take the top spot as a bit of a formality. soon after it was all manipulated to enable winners of various talent shows to claim the crown. until, of course, some facebook or similar campaign spiked it and saw Rage Against The Machine take the top spot one Christmas. that incident says to me there are many like me who also miss the special nature of being the big record of the festive period. and the less said about some efforts - the Manic Street Preachers throwing the dull, dour, depressing average Some Kind Of Nothingness at the Christmas market and being surprised when it failed, for instance - the better. 

to the best of my knowledge, the last (or previous) two Christmas "number one" songs (being the years 2018 and 2019) were both by the same lad what does something or other on you tube, and featured him shouting "sausage rolls" over some middle of the road soft rock classic or other. i am not particularly interested in whatever claims the title this year. 

bah, humbug, etc.