The Record Press guest blogger Polly Taylor takes a look at that peculiarly British phenomenon and institution known as the Christmas No1…….

So, Ed Sheeran did it. He secured the coveted Christmas 2017 number 1  spot on the singles chart, despite stiff competition from Eminem, who  Ed pipped at the post, forcing the American bestselling artist of the  noughties into 2nd place. A campaign to win Wham the top spot saw them  take 3rd, behind Ed and Eminem.

Wham peaked at number 2 on the New Year chart a week later, matching  the best position ‘Last Christmas’ achieved back in 1984, when the  success of the original Band Aid’s ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’  meant that George and Andrew had to settle for number 2. George also  sang on the Band Aid record, meaning that he is 1 of only 3 acts ever  to have simultaneously featured on the top 2 singles. The other 2 are  Ed Sheehan, who has just joined this exclusive club with his own 2017  number 1, ‘Perfect’, and his vocals on Eminem’s track, ‘River’, which  took number 2. The Beatles, in 1963 and again in 1967, held the top 2  places on the Christmas charts of those years.

Although I supported the Wham campaign, I was perfectly happy to see  Mr Sheeran secure first place. Why? Well, it meant that X Factor  didn’t have anything to do with number 1 – nor in fact any of the top  3. The 2017 winners were at number 9 by Christmas, having spent the  previous week at number 6, after entering the chart the week before at  number 2.

Last Christmas, 2016, Clean Bandit took number 1 and it was Rag ’n’  Bone Man who secured 2nd. X factor winner Matt Terry was at number 8  by Christmas week, having previously peaked at number 3. In 2015,  Lewisham & Greenwich NHS choir beat Justin Bieber to the number 1  spot, although he could be comforted by the fact that he held number 3  as well as 2, with ‘Sorry’ and ‘Love Yourself’ respectively.

In contrast to previous X Factor winners, then, over the last 3 years  the top 3 have not been held by the X Factor. Before that, they  dominated the coveted festive top spot, when Simon Cowell’s darlings  quickly followed coming first in TV’s music competition by seizing the  Christmas number 1. The chart cherry, on top of winning the X factor  (the cake).

Since 2005, over decade ago, the Christmas number 1 has been taken by  a succession of victorious X Factor contestants, starting with Shayne  Ward, who triggered a 4-year run of success for the show’s winners who  followed him – Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson and Alexandra Burke took the  top slot in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Then, in 2009, there was a backlash. Some punters were utterly fed up  with the X Factor and its perceived effect on the music business.  Hankering, perhaps, for the days when the ultimate Christmas present  on any artist’s wish-list was the hotly contested seat at the top of  the British singles chart, they came out in force – by backing a  campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to prime position.

In 2010, Matt Cardle flew the flag for Mr Cowell and bore it all the  way to the top of the Christmas chart again, but I think the doubt had  started to creep in. There was something else, people who’d grown up  with a string of X Factor Christmas number ones began to realise;  theirs weren’t the only contenders.

In 2011 and 2012 the hugely popular Military Wives’ choir and the  Justice Collective grabbed the festive top slots, both with their  charity singles in aid of various Armed Forces and Hillsborough  disaster funds. In 2013 and 2014 X Factor winners triumphed once more,  but 3 years have now passed since those successes and I think – I hope  – that that Christmas N01 spot has become an open contest once  more.

Quite rightly so, in my book. It was so exciting, back in the 1970s, 1980s  and 1990s, when I grew up, waiting to see who’d made it. By the time  they announced who was number 2, it was all over – weeks of watching  Top Of the Pops to hear this year’s festive offerings, picking a  favourite, then waiting for the Sunday night chart show with bated  breath to see if the nation agreed with you.

I’m not alone, it seems. Last month, the 2017 Christmas top 20  featured an unprecedented 8 ‘old’ Christmas songs – from Band Aid,  Brenda Lee, Shakin’ Stevens, Elton John and Chris Rea as well as Wham  and the ever-present Pogues and Mariah Carey tunes. The year before  there were 4; and in every year for the preceding decade – i.e.  between 2005 and 2015, there were between 1 and 3. Is this the start  of a new seasonal trend, where the classics make a massive impact on  the UK’s Christmas top 20?

It wasn’t to be for Shakin’ Stevens back in 1982 with his ‘Blue  Christmas’ EP, which got to number 2; he had to wait until 1985 to  make it with ‘Merry Christmas everyone’. In 1987, absolute Christmas  classic The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl’s ‘Fairytale of New York’  was beaten into 2nd place by the Pet Shop Boys.

The Pogues are, in fact, the only artists to feature in every  Christmas top 20 since 2005. Their position has varied; they climbed  to number 3 in 2005, then 6 in 2006 and 4 in 2007. Between 2008 and  2016, they charted yearly between numbers 10 and 20, then in 2017 they  climbed into the top 10 once more, spending yuletide at number 7. It  is, seemingly the UK’s favourite Christmas song, topping various media  polls time and time again, and holding court as the most played  Christmas song in Britain.

Mariah Carey, ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ is another massive  Christmas hit, but like the Pogues, it didn’t ever reach number 1 on  the British singles chart; like them, Mariah only made number 2 in  1994. She has featured in festive top 20s almost every year since, and  this single is the 11th best seller of all time. It is astonishing, to  me, that both of these ever-popular Christmas classics didn’t even  peak at number 1. Can you imagine such songs being released now, tunes  that would become irrepressible – and irresistible – festive favourites?

Take That missed out in 1993, when Mr Blobby snatched number 1. Mr  Blobby wasn’t the only incongruous one; in 2000 Bob the Builder saw  off another boy band, Westlife, after the second half of the 90s was  dominated the Spice Girls, who secured 1st place with 3 successive  Christmas hits in 1996, 1997 and 1998. In 1997, at least, this was a  good thing, keeping the Teletubbies snapping at their towering heels  in second place.

Mr Blobby, Bob the Builder, the Teletubbies – bring them on, I say. It  just makes the big Christmas No1 reveal all the more thrilling.  As long as it’s an open contest open more, to peak on the Christmas  chart could once more be a very real dream for up and coming  singer/songwriters and bands who play proper instruments. Hallelujah,  Amen and thank the Lord for the likes of Ed Sheeran. Perhaps in future  he can be joined by more of his kind, and we won’t have to rely only  upon the great, but well-worn, Christmas tunes to prop up the festive top 20.

This article was written by our guest blogger Polly Taylor @ BloggerByTheSea.com

Check out Polly’s blog……There are some very entertaining and informative articles on a diverse range of subjects & topics. For instance her home made recipes are mouth watering and delicious!!

The class of ’92 were gathered for the last time, our high school  leavers’ dinner. We sat down to a 3-course meal to celebrate finishing  our A-levels, looking forward to our impending results with feelings  varying between nervous excitement and sheer terror, ready at last to  spread our wings and speed off to various universities around the  British Isles, rushing with indecent haste towards adulthood.

“Oops upside your head” was played, we all sat on the dance floor;  long, swaying lines of teenagers dressed up in their finest. “Sit  down” by James followed, which I will forever remember as the anthem  of that night. My friend completely ruined the dress she’d hired – a  full-length, off- the-shoulder, blue ballgown. An expensive date indeed.

I didn’t know it then, but I should have taken that song as an omen. I  thought I was heading for Liverpool and English Literature, but  A-level results that fell short of my expectations meant that fate and  clearing conspired to send me to study Sociology in Manchester instead.

Last-minute nerves aside, freedom beckoned and I could not wait. The  Soup Dragons’ cover of “I’m Free” played on an endless loop inside my  head. I couldn’t quite believe my luck. I was about to be allowed to  come home as late as I liked; in fact I could stay out all night and  no-one could stop me. If I wanted to exist on nothing but toast,  ditto. No one could tell me my skirt was too short or my hair too  messy. As I got nearer and nearer to my new home, I was high on  trepidation and elation.

What a place to be. Manchester, smack-bang in the middle of where it  was all happening right then. “Madchester” was the genre of the  moment, and I landed right in the middle of where it was all going on,  the twin strands of the indie music scene and clubbing culture running  parallel and sometimes, almost completely intertwined.

In 1993, my second year as a student, I got a bar job at the  Boardwalk, one of Manchester’s most popular clubs at the time, a place  that very successfully capitalised on the popularity of both indie and  house music. James had played the venue, as had the Stone Roses, the  Happy Mondays, the Charlatans and the psychedelically-named Inspiral  Carpets. Oasis even made their live debut there. DJ Dave Haslam had a  weekly slot, hosting the club’s legendary “Yellow” night every Friday.  It wasn’t all about the Hacienda, although Haslam did DJ there too. He  clearly remembers the Boardwalk very fondly; “you get that kind of  club once in a generation”, he says on his website (davehaslam.com).

One of my classmates dabbled in DJ-ing, and spent many absorbed hours  in the city’s record shops, the infamous Affleck’s palace and the Corn  Exchange, rooting through racks of vinyl for rare 12 inch remixes.  Vinyl was at the time petering out in popularity among the masses,  making way for smaller, shinier, tougher CDs, but it was still the  medium of choice for those who manned the decks every weekend, drawing  huge crowds of clubbers in from across the North West and even further  afield.

They say youth is wasted on the young. I’m not sure if I agree with  that – I certainly enjoyed my younger years – but one thing I do know  is that I did not realise, or therefore appreciate, how much I was  immersed in music history as it was being made. I showed up for my  shifts, I pulled pint after pint, mopped floors and replenished the  toilet rolls, and, while I enjoyed it, the music was really just  something that was going on in the background while I toiled;  something that kept me awake after I got back to my student flat, my  ringing ears rendering me wide-eyed and alert, unable to unwind at 3am.

By the time I graduated in 1995, the sounds of Madchester were morphing into Britpop, with the explosion of Blur, Oasis, Pulp and  their like onto the scene, all still to this day some of my favourite  bands of all time. Though I may have been blissfully unaware of it at  the time, high as I was on freedom and making my own way in the world,  the Madchester scene must have seeped into my consciousness and  influenced my musical preferences – the word ‘eclectic’ probably sums  up my music collection very accurately.

In 1996, just a year after I left Manchester, the IRA bombed the city  centre, changing it irrevocably. The entire city centre was  remodelled; two medieval pubs in which I’d spent many a happy hour  were even moved, brick by brick, to a new location for the old  Shambles Square, 70 metres away from its original site. The people of  Manchester were shaken, but stirred into action. Today, the city  thrives – it is industrious, modern and upbeat. The Corn exchange is  now a restaurant complex and Affleck’s Palace, safely tucked away in  the Northern quarter, is still going strong.

The Hac (“hass”) – as it was known locally – closed its doors for good  in 1997, Dave Haslam joining Elliot Eastwick on the decks for the  final swansong. The club had been plagued by financial problems for  some time and was apparently subsidised by funds from Factory records  and New Order, the label’s biggest band. Ironically, New Order’s “Blue  Monday”, the biggest selling 12 inch single of all time, lost about 5  pence per copy sold due to the intricate die-cast sleeve costing so  much to produce.

The 2002 film “24 hour party people” documents the rise and fall of  the Hac, the latter allegedly largely down to ecstasy use and the  detrimental effect of this on drink sales. It also reportedly brought  gang-related violence to the already troubled club.

The Has is no more, the building was razed to the ground in 2002 and  there are now flats where it once stood, which were marketed with the  controversial slogan, “now the party’s over, you can come home.” The  Boardwalk closed in 1999 and the building still stands – converted,  predictably, into luxury apartments. A blue plaque marks the building;  “1984-1999. The Boardwalk. Madchester venue nightclub and rehearsal  rooms.” Underneath, the notorious yellow acid house smiley face.

Funkademia, started at the Boardwalk in 1995, has become Manchester’s  longest running club night – it is now held at the Mint Lounge in the  Northern Quarter, so something of those 1990s Manchester clubbing days  still lives on.

People now play out their everyday lives where clubbers and gig-goers  once had the time of theirs. Perhaps some have no idea that the likes  of the Happy Mondays, the Stone Roses and Oasis once played right  there, where they sleep, eat or wash – or even where they host their  own parties.

Recently, I saw photos of old school pals – the same ones from that  1992 leavers’ dinner – at Hacienda Classical in Newcastle, and I  really did get the feeling that things had come full circle. The same  feeling that I get when I see today’s teenagers, rifling through racks  of vinyl just as I did in the 80s and early 90s. On Saturday 25th  November, Hacienda Classical will return to Manchester once more,  following rave (ahem!) reviews of the summer events.

The teenagers and twenty-somethings of the 1990s might be all grown  and mortgaged up these days, but good music will always live on.  Hurrah for the likes of the “Madchester” bands that gave us something  to dance to, to sing along to, and the city and its clubs that gave  them venues in which to hone their talent, to blossom, before bursting  out into the wider world. They also gave a lot of happy, smiley people  nights out to live for – the time of their lives. A precious gift  indeed.

This article was written by Polly Taylor, our first Record Press guest blogger.

We welcome Polly aboard the Good Ship Record Press and her sister the Good Gift Shop MyFirstRecord.co.uk….. “Making the Past the Present”

Check out Polly’s blog @ bloggerbythesea.com/……There are some very entertaining articles on a diverse range of subjects & topics