Wham! have continued their belated festive domination after Last Christmas remained top of the singles chart, a week after being crowned 2024’s Christmas No 1.
The pop duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley made history last week after their 1984 single Last Christmas became the first UK Christmas No1 to top the chart for two years in a row.
The band finally achieved the festive top spot 39 years after the song was initially denied the coveted position by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?
And on Friday, the duo marked their 10th non-consecutive week at the top of the UK singles chart with their famed festive song. It first topped the singles chart on 1 January 2021, more than five years after Michael’s death on Christmas Day in 2016 at the age of 53.
Ridgeley told the Official Charts last week that Michael would be “utterly delighted” the song had become a festive classic. As Last Christmas continues at number one, Mariah Carey has moved up to second place with All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Carey’s song was beaten to the summit by East 17’s Stay Another Day upon its release in 1994, but finally reached the top of the chart in 2020.
This week, the Little Bit of Love singer Tom Grennan’s new track It Can’t Be Christmas, a collaboration with Amazon Music Original, has gone from fourth place to third place.
The festive favourites’ list placed Brenda Lee’s 1958 hit Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree at No 4 and the 1957 song Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms at No 5.
All the top 10 spots featured festive songs during Christmas week, including The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York (six), Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath the Tree (seven), Ariana Grande’s Santa Tell Me (eight), Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? (nine) and Sir Elton John’s Step Into Christmas (10).
In the album charts, the Canadian singer Michael Bublé returned to No 1 after missing out on the top spot last week, when the US pop star Sabrina Carpenter secured the Christmas No 1 album title with Short n’ Sweet.
