Wham! returns to Number 1 with ‘Last Christmas’
Written by worldOneFm on December 16, 2022
Wham! have returned to Number 1 in the UK with their classic track Last Christmas.
Andrew Ridgeley and the late, great George Michael once again reach the summit of the Official Singles Chart, boasting 11.4 million streams, making Last Christmas the most-streamed in the UK this week.
Originally released in 1984, Last Christmas once held the record for the best-selling single never to have hit Number 1 in the UK; famously kept at Number 2 by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? it first went to Number 1 on New Year’s Day 2021, at the time breaking a chart record (now held by Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill) for the longest time a track has taken to top the Singles Chart.
This is Last Christmas’s second stint at Number 1, and Wham!’s fifth Number 1 single overall. Discover Wham!’s Official Charts history in full now.
Last week’s chart-topper, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, is pushed down to second place this week (2), and there are a total of six Christmas tracks inside the Top 10 today; including Ed Sheeran & Elton John with Merry Christmas (4), Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (5), Michael Bublé’s cover of It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas (7), and The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York (10) which breaks into the upper echelons of the chart for the first time this year.
Elsewhere, Stormzy’s Firebabe moves up one place to Number 8, a new peak for the tender ballad featuring vocals by rising singer-songwriter Debbie.
Outside the Top 10, R&B siren SZA sees three singles land inside the Top 40 following the release of her long-awaited second album SOS; Kill Bill (15) and Nobody Gets Me (27) are this week’s highest new entries, while viral banger Shirt rebounds 33 places back into the Top 40 (36).
As the race for this year’s #XmasNo1 officially begins, we have more Christmas songs than ever on the chart; 26 in total, one more than last week. It’s a record week for Bobby Helms’ holiday staple Jingle Bell Rock (11), which reaches its highest-ever peak in the UK in 65 years, after originally being issued in 1957.
Each Christmas song charting this week reaches a new peak for 2022. In full, these are: Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everybody (13), Ariana Grande’s Santa Tell Me (14), Band Aid and Do They Know It’s Christmas? (16), Andy Williams’ It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (19), Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas (20), Elton John once again with Step Into Christmas (21), Lizzo’s Amazon Music Original Someday At Christmas (22), Wizzard with I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday (23), Dean Martin’s Let It Snow!, Let It Snow!, Let It Snow! (29), Leona Lewis’s One More Sleep (31), The Ronettes’ Sleigh Ride (32), Michael Bublé’s second appearance this week with Holly Jolly Christmas (33), Jose Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad (34) and finally, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and their Plastic Band with Merry Xmas (War Is Over) (35).
