The Week in Number Ones: Nat King Cole, Stormzy, and The Chipmunks get jolly
Welcome back to The Week in Number Ones, where all the biggest chart movers from the US and UK charts get condensed into one article. Happy new year, everybody! If you have any notable resolutions you’re looking forward to this year, I wish you all the luck in the world. As for me, it’s hard to improve on perfection, you know?
What I do hope we can do is improve upon last year’s pop charts. Unlike some, I actually thought that the 2022 charts showed signs of real promise. In my year-end round-up, I was pleasantly surprised by just how many songs I actually liked from the collection of number ones from the US and UK.
Will that optimism carry over to this year? Ehhhh… as you’ll see, it’s hard to really start the year off strong anymore. The ghosts of Christmas music past will inevitably be tricky over to the start of the new year, and even though the holidays are now officially over, people are still somehow streaming Mariah Carey on an endless loop.
But they’re not the only ones. This week, we’ll look at how Stormzy is currently the sole exception in a UK top ten full of yuletide cheer and highlight Nat King Cole joining the ranks of the Xmas season elite. We’ll also flash back in time to see how The Chipmunks gave America its one and only number-one Christmas song for nearly 60 years. All that and more as we round up the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past.
Current UK Number One: ‘Last Christmas’ – Wham!
With both the US Charts and UK Charts settling into a groove with streaming numbers, it’s becoming clear who dominates the popular music scene every year. In Britain, it’s dearly departed George Michael and his cohort Andrew Ridgley, who continued their annual run up the charts with their now-canon holiday classic, ‘Last Christmas’.
In fact, the UK has decided to follow suit with what America has been doing the past couple of years: throwing exclusively Christmas-themed songs at the top of the charts. A quick glance at the top ten shows a whopping nine holiday songs all battling it out for chart supremacy. So who’s the sole exception?
That would be grime-soul troubadour Stormzy. I’ve already raved about his recent top ten single, ‘Hide & Seek’, as one of the more underrated tracks of 2022. He already landed his third studio effort, This Is What I Mean, at the top of the UK Album Charts. Now it’s time to see if ‘Firebabe’ has the legs to make a proper run.
Stormzy might have timed the single’s release perfectly. In another week or two, the holiday songs will drop out of the charts. Someone has to step up, and Stormzy is the first guy with his foot in the door. We’ll see if his well-planned gambit pays off, but even if it doesn’t, it’s just nice to have something that isn’t filled with jingle bells in the top ten.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of January 4th, 2023):
- ‘Last Christmas’ – Wham!
- ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ – Mariah Carey
- ‘Merry Christmas’ – Ed Sheeran & Elton John
- ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ – Brenda Lee
- ‘Firebabe’ – Stormzy
- ‘It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas’ – Michael Bublé
- ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ – Bobby Helms
- ‘Someday at Christmas’ – Lizzo
- ‘Fairytale of New York’ – Pogues ft. Kristy MacColl
- ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ – Andy Williams
Current US Number One: ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ – Mariah Carey
You know the names: Mariah, Brenda, Burl, Jose. These are the major players who return to the top of the charts every single year around Christmas. It’s all a bit null and void since Mariah Carey is always the one who comes out on top, but there’s always a chance that these perennial bridesmaids could make a run-up to the number one spot.
Those familiar figures now have another legendary name to contend with: Nat King Cole. The iconic jazz singer who became one of the biggest names in music during a time of intense racial segregation in the United States, Cole also happens to have a classic Christmas song of his own, ‘The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)’.
Cole didn’t write the song, but he did record it on four separate occasions and became the iconic voice that usually sings the melody in your head whenever you think of “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” Cole’s first stab at the song came all the way back in 1946, but it was his 1961 recording that eventually peaked at number 65 during the final week of 192.
For whatever reason, ‘The Christmas Song’ wasn’t among the highest charting songs once Billboard changed their streaming rules and Christmas songs began taking over the charts. But now, with a new peak at number nine, Nat King Cole is officially among the elite of the holiday season, more than 75 years after taking on ‘The Christmas Song’ for the first time.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of January 7th, 2023):
- ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ – Mariah Carey
- ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ – Brenda Lee
- ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ – Bobby Helms
- ‘Last Chrismas’ – Wham!
- ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ – Burl Ives
- ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ – Andy Williams
- ‘Feliz Navidad’ – Jose Feliciano
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)’ – Nat King Cole
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith and Kim Petras
This Week in Number Ones: ‘The Chipmunk Song’ – The Chipmunks with David Seville (#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, January 5th, 1959)
We’re living in an inescapable era of Christmas songs dominating the charts every year. At this point, December has become a wasteland for new releases. There’s no point, really – you’re missing out on getting on ‘Best of the Year’ lists, and most listeners either want to hear yuletide music exclusively or are barricading themselves from the onslaught by barely listening to music at all. It’s a lose-lose situation.
But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, between 1960 and 2018, not a single Christmas song had gone to the top of the charts. That’s right: for nearly 60 uninterrupted years, there were no holiday songs that even sniffed the number-one spot in America.
2019 was the first year that Mariah Carey took ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ to number one (there’s something wonderfully strange about a song perenially going to number one today but failing to do so on its original release). Despite that major accomplishment, it wasn’t the first Christmas song to hit number one in the US.
Back in 1959, a plague was unleashed on America. A disease that had no known cure and long-lasting ramifications. It was called ‘The Chipmunk Song’, and we’re still dealing with the effects to this day.
‘The Chipmunk Song’ was ground zero for novelty songs dominating popular culture. Since the Billboard Hot 100 was only established in the first week of August 1958, there were only seven songs that hit the top of the charts before the Christmas season that year. And once it was the holiday season, people really wanted to hear the sped-up voice of one David Seville.
In reality, “David Seville” was a stage name for Ross S. Bagdasarian, a former Army Staff Sergeant who was a fringe figure in the entertainment industry throughout the 1950s. He initially worked as an actor, but after helping Rosemary Clooney score her first major hit with ‘Come On-a My House’, Bagdasarian turned his attention to music.
After signing with Liberty Records as a songwriter, Bagdasarian turned his attention to novelty songs. His major breakthrough came in 1958 with the song ‘Witch Doctor’, which Bagdasarian composed after messing around with the speed controller on his tape recorder (to the surprise of absolutely no one, ‘Witch Doctor’ hasn’t aged particularly well). The ability to manipulate his voice was a revelation for Bagdasarian, who implemented the same technique in his next release.
Make no mistake: ‘The Chipmunk Song’ was more than just a silly novelty track; it was a goddamn phenomenon. Over 4 million records of the single were sold by the start of 1959. At the first-ever Grammy Awards, Bagdasarian went home with three awards. It’s kind of like when you hear that the first Best Actor winner at the Oscars was almost a dog named Rin Tin Tin – the entertainment industry was just different and way more tolerant of ridiculousness back then.
Bagdasarian started an empire that’s continued to produce albums, television shows, and movies for more than 60 years. In some strange way, he also lit the spark that continues to burn bright in popular music more than 50 years after he died. Whether you love or loathe the domination of Christmas music around this time of year, Bagdasarian is the man who got in the door first.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of January 5th, 1959):
- ‘The Chipmunk Song’ – The Chipmunks with David Seville
- ‘Some Gets In Your Eyes’ – The Platters
- ‘To Know Him, Is to Love Him’ – The Teddy Bears
- ‘Problems’ – The Everly Brothers
- ‘One Night’ – Elvis Presley
- ‘My Happiness’ – Connie Francis
- ‘Tom Dooley’ – The Kingston Trio
- ‘A Lover’s Question’ – Clyde McPhatter
- ‘Gotta Travel On’ – Billy Grammer
- ‘Whole Lotta Loving’ – Fats Domino
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