All I want for Christmas is a number one hit

Why are Christmas songs so popular? They drive some people mad, yet they come back year after year and achieve huge sales – and one musicologist argues that some possess real merit. Pamela Lutalo and her fellow members of the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir could not quite believe it. There they were at Britain’s most famous recording studio, Abbey Road, singing with Justin Bieber. For the doctors, nurses and other NHS staff, it could not have been a further cry from the hospital wards where they had worked throughout the pandemic. The song was a remix of Bieber’s song Holy, and it is one of several hot contenders for this year’s Christmas number one. The seeds of the collaboration were sown five years ago when the choir’s recording of Bridge Over You was competing for the top spot with Bieber’s Love Yourself. When Bieber learnt of the situation, he selflessly encouraged his fans to download his rivals’ song rather than his. “Justin Bieber helped make our dreams come true in 2015 and he’s doing the same this year,” said the choir’s leader, Caroline Smith. “We really can’t thank him enough for the chance to work with him on this wonderful, uplifting song.” Pamela Lutalo called Holy “a song of appreciation to families, friends, colleagues and community who have provided encouragement and support to people during the pandemic”. All proceeds from the song will go to NHS charities. There is a long tradition of seasonal recordings for charity. But whether or not the aim is to raise money for a good cause, the Christmas number-one slot is keenly competed for by some of music’s biggest stars. A strong rival to Holy is Mariah Carey’s version of All I Want for Christmas Is You, which is currently number one in the UK. Recorded in 1994, and re-released several times, it has sold 16 million copies over the years, making it one of the most successful singles ever – though it is still a long way behind the all-time leader, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, which has reached the 50 million mark. Also in the frame this year are LadBaby’s Don’t Stop Me Eatin’, Liam Gallagher’s All You’re Dreaming Of and Robbie Williams’s Can’t Stop Christmas. Successful Christmas singles are major money-spinners because they get played constantly every year. In Nick Hornby’s novel About A Boy, the main character lives entirely off the royalties from a terrible song by his father called Santa’s Super Sleigh. Some people bracket Christmas records in general with dross of this kind. But the classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough believes they are wrong to do so. “The truly important message of Christmas,” he writes, “and what makes it so perennially touching, is its celebration of goodness and simplicity.” Traditional carols capture this spirit, but so can secular Christmas songs, “because they share the same values of benevolence and generosity”. This is true even of jokey songs. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer shows that “a defect can be the very thing most useful and lovable. Such a reversal of human wisdom is one of the things that makes Christmas so powerful.” Why are Christmas songs so popular? Stocking rocking Some say that at Christmas we are less discerning about what we listen to. We want something to get us into the festive mood, and songs do that more quickly and effectively than anything else. They also get non-stop promotion: radio stations and shops play them all the time, and record companies do whatever they can to cash in by persuading their artists to make Christmas singles and albums. Others argue that music encapsulates the true spirit of Christmas. In the words of Stephen Hough, it is “a bringer of life, of light, of healing. It can seem to give wings to our spirits.” This is particularly true of carols, but can also apply to non-religious songs. Charity recordings wonderfully combine the joy of music with the seasonal impulse to help those in need. KeywordsSecular - A word used to describe something that is not connected with the religious or spiritual sphere.