To think the Christmas Number One has gone tacky and downhill?

[SoniaFouler]

I just saw that LadBaby has had its 4th Christmas number one single. Based on what? Tik tok and streaming views on YouTube? I haven’t heard the song and not going to bother but does anyone else think music these days is just low effort, cheap and bland? What about real Christmas number ones, like Spice Girls 2 Become 1 for example.

Also saw that they had a rivalry to get to number one with a band called “The Kunts”. Really? I have no problem with the word cunt but I also don’t think this fits in with the whole Christmas theme. Can you imagine a child saying “who reached number one, mummy?” And she replies “it was The Kunts darling”??

The way in which music is consumed has changed so much that the charts are completely meaningless. Continuing with them is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and then should just quietly retire them.

@sherrytrifleforthewin

Name change for this as it's outing. They used to go to the same school as my kids. Not as salt of the earth as they make out. Really aloof and lots of attention seeking demands about preserving the privacy of their kids, while driving a branded car to school for all to see.

Ladbaby or the Kunts?

@SoniaFouler 100% agree. There's not been many good Christmas number 1 hits this century tbh. A few OK/good songs ... Like Under the tree - Kelly Clarkson, One more sleep - Leona Lewis. Christmas Lights - Coldplay. Santa tell me - Ariana Grande, Where are you Christmas - Faith Hill, and a few others. But they've not been No 1, and in many cases, not even top 10.

21st century Christmas No 1s have been largely shit. It was dominated by Pop Idol and X Factor for about a decade or more, and this past 4 years, it's been dominated by bloody Lad Baby. I cringed inwardly and felt my heart sink, when I heard that shitty piece of crap from LAD BABY was Christmas No 1.

Who the fuck is buying this shit? It's utterly UTTERLY dire, and is going to go down in history as being utterly dire. Not a single person I know has purchased this drivel, and they all think it's utter wank.

By the way, yes the Spice Girls songs were good. Ignore the music snobs, who think they're 'cool' because they say they didn't like the Spice Girls. I am impressed that 60% of the people who have voted (300 so far,) agree with you (and me!)

Yes I know I am irrationally angry, over-invested, blah blah blah, so shoot me!

Watch any Spice girls performances or videos and you will notice how good they were for a girl group ; they had a brand, Mel C could sing and they had a bit of charm and sass , the Americans loved them too.
They were of a time. Stop ! Is a pop classic.

I don't think you're supposed to like the song. I bought it because theyre raising money for the trussell trust. I think the song is shite but it's meant to be.

It's a terribly inefficient way to do it, though. How much of your 99p does the TT see, after all costs are taken out? If you gave them 99p directly (although I bet most people would give at least a fiver, if they could, so already five times as much), they would see 99p of it.

Completely agree with Round Robin and 80s

Lad baby.

@the80sweregreat

Watch any Spice girls performances or videos and you will notice how good they were for a girl group ; they had a brand, Mel C could sing and they had a bit of charm and sass , the Americans loved them too. They were of a time. Stop ! Is a pop classic.

Agree! They were fab, and have stood the test of time. Even 25 years on, people still love their songs, and they are all still fairly successful and relevant. They had the foresight and the sass to make sure they had material on their albums that they wrote themselves, ergo securing themselves financially pretty much for life.

My 2 DC adored them, and I have really happy memories of taking them to a Spice Girls concert when they were much younger. And the Spice Girls were really good too!

@SoniaFouler

Completely agree with Round Robin and 80s

I really feel for kids today, who will never know the excitement that we did with the pop charts. I know they have so many better things and methods and much more freedom to consume music as they like, but it always used to be something really special. Now, it's totally irrelevant.

They'll never miss what they never knew, I suppose; but I used to love the charts and seeing what was in the Top Ten - and then Number 1. All new music only (or at least somebody had to go to all the trouble and expense to officially re-issue an old single).

It got boring enough when the likes of Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet 'hogged' it for months on end - and I never quite got how a song could be supposedly so amazing and yet people would wait 15 weeks before buying a copy - but now, any old song that has ever been released can randomly take the top spot if it's used in an advert or film or something - time and time again.

Fair enough if you've only just heard it; but I can't quite grasp all of the biggest ever die-hard fans of X artist who dies, who suddenly realise that they were never quite a big enough fan previously to actually own any recordings of their music. OK, so maybe they're doing it as a tribute - but that's not what the music sales chart is actually meant to be about.

@Georgieporgiepuddinandpie

I cannot and I mean cannot ABIDE Ladbaby and their ridiculous videos. Yak yak yak

Same so many people seem to think they are entertaining it makes my mind boggle

Totally agree @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll I used to LOVE the excitement of the charts, and Top of the Pops etc, and it was lovely when everyone was watching the same thing on TV at the same time, like Morecambe and Wise, Noel Edmonds Christmas Morning Show (from the childrens hospital,) Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special, and The Two Ronnies etc. And also things like Torville and Dean winning at the olympics, and Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor at the snooker final etc. Around half the population of the country were watching these programmes!

There's very little of that now. Although, I suppose the equivalent now is the trending topics and memes and things going viral etc, and everyone watching the same Netflix show, like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown etc, along with Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and so on...

As you said, they don't miss what they never had, but I would hate to have missed all the excitement and fun of the 1970s and 1980s, and even to some extent, the 1990s too, and how everyone was listening to, and watching the same thing (on the radio, and on the TV,) at exactly the same time.

YABU because Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder were both Xmas number 1s. It's not going downhill, it was always tacky.

@appleturnovers

YABU because Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder were both Xmas number 1s. It's not going downhill, it was always tacky.

I wasn’t talking about those though I gave the example of 2 become 1 which was a nice non-tacky song

The song may be for charity but you’d be a fool to believe these are benevolent people doing it because they care so much about people going hungry. They know their brand, they know what works, they know their audience and they make a shit load of money form behaving like a bunch of pillocks and linking out their kids for ‘entertainment’ (if their videos are your kind of thing) and they know that these singles all feed into that popularity, which feeds into how much money they make.

If they were told by their PR folk that a charity single was a bad move they wouldn’t do it

My mum always have the tv on in the background over Christmas and yesterday she had all the Christmas number ones through the years. It's only hearing them together you realise how depressing and dull half of them were. Especially towards the end where most were X factor rubbish.

@SoniaFouler. The day anyone starts complaining that music isn't as good as it was in in your young days is the day they officially move into middle age. You are no longer in touch with the zeitgeist.

I'm moving past middle aged and into properly old so I remember a LOT of Christmas No1s and with a very few notable exceptions they have always been pretty crap (Lily the Pink, There's no one quite like Grandma). Some of the greatest Christmas songs ever weren't No1s (Last Christmas and Fairy Tale of NY being the two that spring to mind). And some of the best Christmas No1s have absolutely nothing do,with Christmas (Bohemian Rhapsody, and any Beatles one ).

I don't think anyone imagines the song is a wholly altruistic and selfless move, any more than mudslinging about doing charity wrong is motivated solely by goodwill. But it's funny that they probably would have drawn no criticism at all about charity giving if they hadn't made it a charity single.

People just bought Mr Blobby in 1993 to knock Take That's Babe off the number one spot. It was a very close run thing.

Nearly 30 years later I still haven't quite got over this even though Babe wasn't even one of their best songs 🤣

You do realise that they are all in business just to make money and that a no1 record at Christmas usually brings in massive amounts of money.

@Exhausteddog

People just bought Mr Blobby in 1993 to knock Take That's Babe off the number one spot. It was a very close run thing.

Nearly 30 years later I still haven't quite got over this even though Babe wasn't even one of their best songs 🤣

Do you recall all the rumors of Noel Edmonds buying up as many singles as possible or asking associates to to make sure Blobby got to number 1?

I think as a huge Take That fan at the time I was livid over that one!

What about real Christmas number ones, like Spice Girls 2 Become 1 for example.

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2 become 1 which was a nice non-tacky song

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2 become 1 wasnt one of their best ones, but all groups have a dodgy number or two !
Generally speaking their songs were pop classics. They may not have written them , but Elvis didn't write any of his songs either and people tend to big him up a lot!