|
Every year in the UK Singles Chart, there is a highly publicised race for the top slot on the chart immediately prior to Christmas, an honour known as the Christmas Number One. The UK public take a particular interest in chart performance and sales of singles are especially high in the two weeks before Christmas. The race for first position at Christmas has become a British institution and people will speculate, comment and bet upon the outcome.〔 The following is a list of UK Singles Chart Christmas number twos, songs that came in second place on the chart. ==Background== Although the Christmas number one is a highly coveted prize in the United Kingdom, the second-place finisher on the Christmas singles chart has also earned a certain degree of popularity, especially since the 1980s. In fact, on PRS for Music's 2010 list of the most popular Christmas songs of the year, the top three songs were all songs that had finished second on the chart: 1987's "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl (beaten by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind"), 1984's "Last Christmas" by Wham! (second to Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?"), and 1994's "All I Want for Christmas Is You", now considered a Christmas standard both in the UK and in performer Mariah Carey's native United States but one that lost the Christmas number-one to East 17's "Stay Another Day".〔 In some cases, the Christmas number-one is a novelty song that has little shelf life after the Christmas season, whereas the number-two has a greater life in recurrent rotation. An example of this was 1980's "There's No One Quite Like Grandma" by St Winifred's School Choir, a song that forced "(Just Like) Starting Over" by the recently deceased John Lennon out of the number-one spot (Lennon returned to number-one the week after Christmas).〔 The only group to have both Christmas numbers 1 and 2 in the same year is The Beatles, a feat they achieved twice, in 1963 and 1967. George Michael is the only artist to have been a Christmas number one and number two the same year in different groups (Band Aid at number 1 and Wham! at number 2 in 1984). Cliff Richard has finished second on the Christmas charts four times, the most of any act. The highest selling Christmas number-two is "She Loves You" by The Beatles followed by "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. Another factor in the greater interest in the Christmas number two is the growing influence of reality television programmes on the chart. ''Popstars: The Rivals'' (2002) produced all of the top three singles on the Christmas UK Singles Chart. ''The Choir'' produced the number-one single in 2011. The most sustained reality-orientated run at the top of the Christmas charts has been ''The X Factor'', whose winner has charted number-one or number-two on the chart every year since the second series in 2005. Bookmakers began to notice the ''X Factor'' trends in 2007, when, assuming the ''X Factor'' single would be a certainty for the number-one, they started taking bets on who Christmas number two would be instead.〔〔 The ''X Factor's'' dominance has also led to numerous novelty campaigns to attempt to prevent the show's winner from reaching the top of the chart, although only "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine was successful in 2009. Charity records have pushed the X-Factor winners down to number-two in 2011 and 2012, while in 2013 and 2014 the X-Factor winners pushed two million selling records down to number-two. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「List of UK Singles Chart Christmas number twos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|