12 Years of UK Christmas #1

1996
#1 Spice Girls "2 Become 1"

This was the year the Spice Girls, the pop act that would rule the pop chart for 3 years, broke out big with their debut #1 single "Wannabe" and its follow-up #1 "Say You'll Be There." So it's quite fitting that they scored the year's Christmas #1. This doesn't appear to have been a particularly competitive year. The only other debut in the top 20--surely what must have been considered the competition--was Madonna's "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" at #3. Last week's #1, Dunblame's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door/Throw These Guns Away" was unseated by the Spices at #2.



1997
#1 Spice Girls "Too Much"

This was just a couple weeks before I arrived in London for my semester abroad, so I remember hearing all of these on the radio. Again, it doesn't appear to be terribly competitive, with the Spice Girls debuted at #1 with "Too Much," their sixth #1 hit and second consecutive Christmas #1. The only other top 10 debut was Mase with "Feel So Good" (remember Mase? The song that lifted from Gloria Estefan's "Bad Boys?"). The closest competition would appear to have been the last two #1 hits--the Teletubbies "Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh" and the charity remake of "Perfect Day," which featured an all-star line up. "Perfect Day" would actually rebound to #1 just 2 weeks later (the week I arrived in London in fact).



1998
#1 Spice Girls "Goodbye"

Third year in a row the Spice Girls had Christmas #1. This should have been their swan song--they came back for one more album and one more #1 hit. "Goodbye," their eighth #1 hit, was a message not to the fans but to the recently departed Geri Halliwell. This was the first single without Geri.

This actually was a competitive year, with the Spice Girls beating out Chef, the South Park character, at #2 with "Chocolate Salty Balls," which would climb to #1 the week after Christmas, and Channel 4 presenters Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughn, who remade Kylie and Jason's "Especially for You" at #3.



1999
#1 Westlife - I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun

This was a very competitive Chritmas chart, with six entries in the top 10. Westlife were the triumphant winners of the week, landing their fourth #1 hit with their Abba remake "I Have a Dream." The single was the group's biggest hit, spending 4 weeks atop the UK singles chart. Their closest competition was the previous week's #1, Cliff Richard's "The Millennium Prayer," which does sound like a Christmas #1 even if it wasn't meant to be. The runners up included a re-release of John Lennon's "Imagine" at #3, the third S Club 7 single, "Two in a Million"/"You're My Number One" at #5 (proving that naming your song a number one hit is not enough to make it so), and Steps (sigh) at #7 with their double A-side release of "Say You'll Be Mine" and Kylie remake "Better the Devil You Know." There was also another South Park single, Mr. Hankey's "Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo."



2000
#1 Bob the Builder "Can We Fix It?"

This gets my award for lamest Christmas #1 in recent memory--the theme song of a children's show. How embarassing for Westlife, who were laid waste by a cartoon to land at #2 with "What Makes a Man," the band's first single to miss #1 after seven consecutive chart-toppers. No other significant competition--Oxide and Neutrino debuted at #6 with "No Good 4 Me" and the Sugababes at #12 (before they were really big) with "New Year," their second single.



2001
#1 Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman "Somethin' Stupid"

This is one of my favorite recent Christmas #1s. It still works at Christmas, despite not being a Christmas song (only one of these 12 songs really is an actual Christmas song). Robbie Williams was still a big star in 2001, and this was his fifth #1 hit. Plus it gave actress Nicole Kidman a #1 hit--I bet few people outside the UK know about that. Robbie and Nicole fended off a challenge from Gordon Haskell's sappy "How Wonderful You Are" at #2 and a former #1, Daniel Bedingfield's debut single "Gotta Get Thru This," at #3, which would later return to #1.



2002
Girls Aloud "The Sound of the Underground"

This was the first of the now traditional reality show-based Christmas #1 dominators. Unlike with the recent X Factor winners, this was actually a competition. During the run of the show Pop Stars: The Rivals, two groups were selected--girl group Girls Aloud and boy group One True Voice. Both would release singles the week of Christmas, and whoever sold the most would be the winner. Pretty cool. In the end Girls Aloud triumped with their first single "The Sound of the Underground," and went on to become one of the decade's most successful pop acts, currently enjoying the success of their 19th top 10 hit (and fourth #1), "The Promise" and about to release new single "The Loving Kind." One True Voice were #2 with "Sacred Trust." They had another top 10 hit and were never heard from again.



2003
#1 Michael Andrews Featuring Gary Jules "Mad World"

This is the only recent Christmas #1 upset, and it was truly great. Hoping to ride the Girls Aloud reality show success, the second season of Pop Idol contestants did a remake of John and Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." It should have been a slam dunk, but instead it landed a lowly #5, beaten by Bo Selecta's "Proper Crimbo" at #4, Kelly & Ozzy Osbourne's former #1 "Changes" at #3, The Darkness's rockin' Christmas single "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" at #2, and this dark and mysteriously beautiful single "Mad World" at #1. A remake of a Tears for Fears song, the track comes from the 2001 film Donnie Darko. Did I mention that Pop Idol never had a third season?



2004
Band Aid 20 "Do They Know It's Christmas"

This star-studded remake of "Do They Know It's Christmas," recorded for charity to mark the 20-year anniversary of the original was an easy easy pick for Christmas #1. It had already been #1 for the 2 weeks before Christmas, and it was a sure bet for a third (even a fourth) week at the top. Ronan Keating and Yusef "Cat" Stevens were distant second at #2 with a remake of Boyzone's "Father and Son," which was a really odd single if you think about it.



2005
#1 Shayne Ward "That's My Goal"

This was the first of the X Factor Christmas #1s. The show's first season winner Steve Brookstein wisely stayed away from Band Aid 20, releasing his first single "Against All Odds" the week after Christmas (and still hit #1). Second season winner Shayne then became the first to score a Christmas #1. He triumphed in a week of high-profile releases that included a re-release of the Pogues's "Fairytale of New York," which hit #3, Enimen's "When I'm Gone" at #5, and new singles from Girls Aloud, Coldplay and James Blunt which took spots #9 through #11. Also, I have to mention the single at #2, Nizlopi's "JCB Song." Some people hate this song, but I thought the story, told from the point of view of a little boy riding with his dad on a tractor, was sweet.



2006
#1 Leona Lewis "A Moment Like This"

Here's the real superstar of the X Factor, Leona Lewis, with her first hit. Looking back, it's a pity they chose this song for her. Leona Lewis deserves to have had a song she could have made her own, not a remake of Kelly Clarkson's American Idol victory single. Still, Leona is the only X Factor contestant to score a second (and now third) #1 hit, so we can't fault it too much.

Leona beat the previous week's #1 hit, Take That's "Patience," which landed at #2, McFly's "Sorry's Not Good Enough" at #3, Girls Aloud's remake of "I Think We're Alone Now" at #4, and yet another resurgence of The Pogues at #6.



2007
#1 Leon Jackson "When You Believe"

Leon remade Whitney and Mariah's 1998 Prince of Egypt theme song, changing a few of the lyrics along the way. Who did he beat? The Pogues of course, who were #4 this time, and the previous week's #1, the Katie Melua/Eva Cassidy single "What a Wonderful Life."