Chart Watch Weekly - December 12th 2022
Santa Won't You?
For the longest time this seemed to be something that was very important to music fans online and on forums - Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You finally fulfilling its destiny as - consistently - the most popular modern-day Christmas song of all and making it to the top of the UK charts. It was a destiny it famously fulfilled in December 2020.
But as I was keen to point out even before it happened, once the stars aligned in the correct manner for the 1994 song to barge its way past more up-to-date hits and top the charts, there was really little barrier to it occurring over and over again. Just as it has, for example, in America (spoiler alert!).
Last year we dodged that particular bullet as Elton John and Ed Sheeran's Merry Christmas stood in the way of anything else topping the charts during Advent, but sure enough, history has indeed repeated itself this week. The sodding Mariah song is once more top of the charts. In doing so it becomes one of only a tiny handful of recordings to have made No.1 on two entirely separate occasions. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was the first in 1991 with My Sweet Lord by George Harrison following in early 2002. Both of these posthumous re-issues. The only other song to repeat the trick is Three Lions, returning to the summit in 2018 in a manner it has notably failed to duplicate at any football tournament since.
But you don't subscribe to these words to hear me re-hash existing facts, so let's note something a bit different. All I Want For Christmas Is You tops the charts with an official sale of 44,797. That is of course an ACR-adjusted total, its streams as a catalogue hit counting for half the normal number. Without this hindrance, the single's total would be 88,686, the second-highest weekly sale of the year.
But that's actually a curiously low number, especially when you consider Official Charts credited the track with a huge 10.8m streams over the course of last week. And it is all down to the markedly different audience profile such seasonal hits have.
To explain: no singles convert their streams to sales at precisely 100:1, the number blunted by "free" streams (ie via Spotify's free tier and most YouTube plays) which convert at 200:1. Last week Mariah Carey's streams accounted for 87,778 of her unadjusted chart sales (all but 904 of the total in fact) meaning that her 10.8m streams converted at a rate of just over 123:1.
To take a random example, let's compare that to Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero. In its fifth week at the top a fortnight ago was declared to have enjoyed 5.2m streams, accounting for 46,027 of its chart sales that week. A conversion ratio of 112:1.
Christmas hits generally enjoy a far higher proportion of casual, unpaid streams than the average chart hit. Just as back in the day music shops at Christmas sold to people who never entered their doors at any other time, these days the same people engage with music streams at a higher level than normal. So the sales dominance of festive favourites could in theory be far, far higher than it actually is.
Anyway, here's the best version of this week's No.1 single. No further correspondence will be entered into.
Cigar-Less
This was actually a phenomenally close-run thing. This week's No.3 single (Last Christmas, inevitably) had a chart sale of 43,685 - a mere 1,112 sales behind the No.1. That's the smallest gap between singles #1 and #3 for 16 years.
That means this week's No.2 single was even more unlucky to run into the Carey juggernaut. But it means a moral, if not actual, chart-topping single for RAYE who thus proves all the doubters (mainly at her old label) wrong with a massive smash hit under her own steam for the very first time. The massive influx of festive hits that is already underway (five of the Top 10 are seasonal songs) means that contemporary hits like Escapism are set to be utterly lost in the mix as the seasonal singles charts descend into chaos and irrelevance. But come the new year (three charts away) the traditional January reset will mean something will emerge as the first chart-topper of the new year. And right at this minute RAYE is in pole position. Which is a joy to behold.
Stick Your Roll Up Your
Today the moment we long feared arrived. Mark "Ladbaby" Hoyle unveiled the existence of his fifth annual charity single, meaning that barring some kind of festive miracle (save us Kunt!) the destination of the Christmas No.1 is more or less a foregone conclusion.
That said, the reaction to the news that he and wife Roxanne are teaming up with Martin Lewis (the "money-saving expert") on a new rendering of Do They Know It's Christmas was met with the most hostile response online I can recall in some time. People are genuinely bored of his shtick, tired of him trotting out the same joke and genuinely cynical about his true motivations for the charity single.
But, as any fule kno, Twitter is not Britain. And a few misanthropes whining online or in chart newsletters is unlikely to stop around 80,000 people bunging 99p Amazon or Apple's way to download the song next week.
Sorry music fans, the charts at Christmas are pointless. And Christmas No.1 especially so.
It Is All They Want As Well
So remember what I said at the start? Once Mariah Carey has barged her way to the top of the charts in December one year there is nothing to stop her doing it over and over again. Because the love and demand for streams of the track will never go away.
So just look what we have here. The arrival at No.5 of Metro Boomin's Creepin' as the highest new entry is overshadowed by the annual pilgrimage of All I Want For Christmas Is You to the top of the Hot 100. This is the fourth year running that the festive favourite has spent at least one week at the top of the US charts.
Mariah Carey already held the record for "most weeks at #1" on the Hot 100, this largely thanks to her exploits in the 1990s when she would spend months on end at the summit with radio-friendly ballad of the moment. Her latest journey to the top is her 88th week at the top of the US charts since her debut 32 years ago.
A Land Down Under
Taylor Swift's reign atop the ARIA charts comes to an end this week, but in a shock twist it is deposed by the single it originally replaced as Anti-Hero enjoys a resurgence.
We can also take our annual moment to note that while it is the height of midsummer in the southern hemisphere the traditional Christmas imagery of sleigh bells and snow crunching underfoot still resonates, meaning All I Want For Christmas Is You has barged its way to the Top 3. The single has repeated on the Australians at the top of their charts for each of the last four years, and it would be a foolish person who bets against it landing there sometime in the next fortnight.
Look on the bright side, they don't have to endure the Sausage Roll millionaire time and time again.
TECHNICALLY We Don't Like The French
No, we are not in the slightest bit bitter towards our World Cup vanquishers here at Chart Watch. And just to prove it, here's a wander around the upper end of the French charts this week. It is a countdown refreshingly free of Mariah Carey's or indeed any other festive favourites (she is No.11 in case you were wondering).
France's No.1 artist of the week is 23 year old rapper Aurélien N'Zuzi Zola who has been absent from the French charts since 2020 but who smashes his way straight to the top with the curiously mellow Amber. Yes, it is a rap song, the French youth love them even if mainstream radio stations don't. But this one is more worthwhile than some.
Midweek Teases
I mean, what do you want me to say here? It is the final chart before the Christmas one, and the Top 3 is just as you might expect it. All I Want For Christmas Is You is in pole position once more as of the Monday evening midweeks, but it is being harried closely by Last Christmas which is just 186 chart sales behind and eyeing its own sensational second trip to the summit.
No.3 is the song which was No.1 exactly 52 weeks ago Merry Christmas by Ed Sheeran and Elton John which I remind you is enjoying precisely half the streams of the singles above it, but benefitting from being on SCR still. But that said, it still has a level of popularity equal to the other contemporary chart hits of the moment - including Escapism which is holding its own at No.4.
Making huge strides is this year's biggest Amazon Exclusive, Lizzo's take on Stevie Wonder's Someday At Christmas challenging for a place in the Top 10. And remember, the biggest week of all for Christmas songs is not the Christmas No.1 chart but the one compiled the week after - taking in plays this year on 23, 24 and 25 December. The door is open for Lizzo to do an "Ellie Goulding" and nick a place at the top by default. And remember there are never any midweek updates that week, so everything that happens comes as a shock.
Bold are the acts who release new material right now. Sam Ryder's debut album is leading the race to be No.1, but in second place is American star SZA whose album SOS is far and away the most streamed one of the week. She has the two highest new entries on the Top 40, Kill Bill current No.24. One place behind, ahem, Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney.
See you Friday, I'll find SOMETHING positive to say, promise.
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