The scientific formula to get to the top of the Christmas charts

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

When two song-writing supremos like Elton John and Ed Sheeran double their chances of sitting on the top of the UK’s Christmas pop charts – either with their own song or with cameos on Ladbaby’s – you can be fairly confident that, one way or the other, they have the formula for success.

What you might not have known is that Galway’s all-time favourite busker describes this process as ‘throwing the kitchen sink at it’ – a scientific mix of loads of Christmas references, coupled with, in their case, tons of guest appearances in their video of bands and singers who’d also topped the festive charts in the past.

Appearing on BBC’s One Show recently, Ed was entirely honest as to the formula behind this year’s big hit, Merry Christmas.

“We have to get mistletoe in, we have to get sleighbells in – it’s a whole thing. We didn’t get mince pies in though,” he lamented.

And joking though he was, this was closer to the truth than you might imagine – because history shows that there are a number of key touchstones that must be included in a Christmas song if you’re to have any chance of a big hit.

You should have a reference to snow or winter weather, a mention of bells ringing; ideally a Christmas choir singing, possibly presents, certainly mistletoe and unquestionably wine – indeed the last two on their own once got Cliff Richard to the top of the charts on their own.

Just to see if there was a blueprint we all could follow, the excellent Delayed Gratification website took the top twelve most-streamed songs of last Christmas and mined them to see what cultural references they loaded in – the art of throwing the kitchen sink at it, as Ed might say.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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