{"id":3975,"date":"2017-12-26T22:58:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T22:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3975"},"modified":"2017-12-26T22:58:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T22:58:54","slug":"charts-christmas-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3975","title":{"rendered":"Charts &#8211; Christmas 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Christmas, and yes, I\u00a0<em>will<\/em>, at last, get started on clearing that review backlog. \u00a0You might also want to pop down a post and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3979\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vote in our end of year poll for the podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But first the Christmas Number One, because it&#8217;s topical and because it won&#8217;t take long, since nobody releases anything in Christmas week. \u00a0Well, almost nobody.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. \u00a0Ed Sheeran &#8211; &#8220;Perfect&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2Vv-BfVoq4g\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Your 2017 Christmas number one, and boy, Ed Sheeran has not been subtle about making clear that he wanted it. \u00a0This reflects the combined sales of at least three versions &#8211; the original, the Beyonce version and the Andrea Bocelli version &#8211; which isn&#8217;t that unusual in itself, particularly when an album track is promoted to single status. \u00a0But the snow-filled video, the bizarre choice of collaborators to reach crossover audiences&#8230; that&#8217;s a bit obvious. \u00a0I&#8217;d say it carries a note of hard-edged cynicism which rather cuts against Sheeran&#8217;s humbly sentimental persona, but it doesn&#8217;t seem to have put people off.<\/p>\n<p>With Clean Bandit last year, and now Ed Sheeran, we are finally past the era of the Christmas number one being a reality show track, a charity release, or a novelty campaign. \u00a0When Rage Against The Machine&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Killing In The Name&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0was the Christmas Number One in 2009, as a download campaign to spite Simon Cowell, you had people claiming it as a victory for real music. \u00a0But if by that you mean that the years of <em>X Factor\u00a0<\/em>domination were objectionable because they elbowed aside the music that people actually bought normally, then Ed Sheeran is a rather better representative.\u00a0\u00a0This is &#8220;Perfect&#8221;&#8216;s third week at number one, and Sheeran&#8217;s seventeenth week at number one this year; his album has been number one for eighteen weeks and has spent 42 weeks on chart without ever dropping below 6. \u00a0He swept the board on the singles chart to the point where they had to change the rules to stop it happening again.<\/p>\n<p>In short, if you want a Christmas number one that&#8217;s representative of pop music in 2017, Ed Sheeran is about as 2017 as you can imagine. \u00a0All he&#8217;s missing is a tropical house mix.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. \u00a0Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran &#8211; &#8220;River&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3BXDsVD6O10\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But wait, there&#8217;s more! \u00a0Eminem has a new album out this week, and Ed Sheeran has a track on that too. \u00a0This is not technically a single, but it&#8217;s the one that&#8217;s being cherrypicked, and it&#8217;s fairly obvious why. \u00a0This isn&#8217;t all that strange a collaboration; Eminem is the guy who sampled Dido, after all, and Sheeran&#8217;s own interest in rap <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZXvzzTICvJs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">surfaces from time to time<\/a>. \u00a0The song itself is one of Eminem&#8217;s disastrous relationship songs were everyone winds up miserable, and there&#8217;s an abortion at the end. \u00a0It&#8217;s his biggest hit since &#8220;The Monster&#8221; reached number 1 in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Revival&#8221; enters the album chart at number 1, which is entirely predictable because every Eminem album has gone to number 1 except for his debut back in 1999. \u00a0A couple of other Eminem tracks also make the top 40 (which is the limit under current rules): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ryr75N0nki0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Walk on Water&#8221;<\/a> re-enters at 21 (it also has a video now), and <strong>&#8220;In Your Head&#8221;<\/strong> is at 19.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/track\/72i5s3SBDEkaRUOgUTlkfO\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And yes, &#8220;In Your Head&#8221; is indeed based around &#8220;Zombie&#8221; by the Cranberries. \u00a0Eminem&#8217;s musical interests these days seem entirely divorced from modern rap and more concerned with heartfelt rock samples. \u00a0Ploughing his own furrow, I guess&#8230; but &#8220;Zombie&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6Ejga4kJUts\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The original reached number 14 in 1994. \u00a0The Cranberries charted fairly regularly in the nineties, but never made the top 10. \u00a0Their highest-charting singles were &#8220;Salvation&#8221; and &#8220;Promises&#8221;, both of which got to 13, but they were fan-base records that fell out of the chart pretty quickly. \u00a0&#8220;Zombie&#8221; at least hung around for five weeks. \u00a0Their biggest hit in practical terms was probably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G6Kspj3OO0s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Linger&#8221;<\/a>, which also got to 14, but spent ten weeks in the top 40.<\/p>\n<p>Eminem is not the first person to take on &#8220;Zombie&#8221; &#8211; for some reason, it&#8217;s also been subjected to some dance covers. \u00a0The only one to chart in Britain was by an Italian outfit called A.D.A.M. featuring Amy, and reached 16 in 1995. \u00a0&#8220;Zombie&#8221; was intended as a protest song about the Troubles, but A.D.A.M. interpreted it as a perky little number about dancing in a car wash. Strangely, the only version on YouTube or Spotify seems to be the &#8220;Rockin&#8217; With Zombie&#8221; mix, which I haven&#8217;t heard before but, um&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ASQDzdiblNE\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still a better version than Ororo&#8217;s take, which was apparently a hit in Spain in 1994, and is genuinely dreadful.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r0kI_vju78Y\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And&#8230; that&#8217;s pretty much all the activity we have. \u00a0Even my prediction of more Christmas singles doesn&#8217;t come to pass, as they all remain pretty much where they were last week. \u00a0There are a few climbers &#8211;\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Let You Down&#8221; by NF<\/strong> edges up a place to enter the top 10,\u00a0<strong>Brenda Lee&#8217;s &#8220;Rockin&#8217; Around The Christmas Tree&#8221;<\/strong> moves 15-14,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Merry Christmas Everyone&#8221; by Shakin&#8217; Stevens<\/strong> climbs 16-15,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Barking&#8221; by Ramz<\/strong> jumps a more substantial 27-17,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Step Into Christmas&#8221; by Elton John<\/strong> is up 19-18,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Driving Home For Christmas&#8221; by Chris Rea<\/strong> climbs 23-20 (the highest ever place for those last two), and\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Beautiful Trauma&#8221; by Pink<\/strong> moves 31-27. \u00a0The Christmas records likely have one more chance next week &#8211; the chart that covers Christmas itself &#8211; after which they&#8217;re likely to plunge out of the chart leaving a void that something will have to fill. \u00a0Last year, that was a bunch of re-entries from year-in-review playlists, but we&#8217;ll see.<\/p>\n<p>Over on the album chart,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Revival&#8221; by Eminem<\/strong> is number 1 (as already mentioned), and way, way further down, there are a couple of new entries. \u00a0Quiet week, so&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>32. \u00a0Linkin Park &#8211; &#8220;One More Light &#8211; Live&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E5-BCHFajbM\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Not to be confused with &#8220;One More Light&#8221;, which was Linkin Park&#8217;s last studio album. \u00a0It was also the name of their 2017 world tour, which was cancelled when singer Chester Bennington committed suicide just before the US leg was due to begin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>39. \u00a0John Williams &#8211; &#8220;Star Wars &#8211; The Last Jedi &#8211; OST&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U9e5JcKxHaA\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Film scores don&#8217;t often chart, but\u00a0<em>Star Wars<\/em> has unusually devoted fans. \u00a0Williams has the unusual distinction of having got a track into the\u00a0<em>singles<\/em> chart:\u00a0the Theme from <em>E.T.<\/em> reached number 17 in 1982.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Official Chart Company database can&#8217;t tell its John Williamses apart, so it also credits him with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gGycDDqBuX8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Cavatina&#8221;<\/a>w, from <em>The Deer Hunter<\/em>,\u00a0which reached number 13 in 1979.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Christmas, and yes, I\u00a0will, at last, get started on clearing that review backlog. \u00a0You might also want to pop down a post and vote in our end of year poll for the podcast. But first the Christmas Number One, because it&#8217;s topical and because it won&#8217;t take long, since nobody releases anything in Christmas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3982,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions\/3982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}