Wham! have made chart history, with Last Christmas becoming the first song to be crowned Christmas number one two years in a row.
First released in December 1984, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley had to wait 39 years to reach the festive top spot.
On the year of release, they were beaten by Band Aid’s charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, a track that’s controversially seen itself revamped and back in the charts this year too.
George Michael, Bob Geldolf, Bono, Freddie Mercury and Andrew Ridgley at the Live Aid concert in 1985. Pic: AP
Now re-released to mark its 40th anniversary, Last Christmas has become the most-streamed and physically purchased song of the week, according to the Official Charts Company.
Last year the track secured the record for completing the longest-ever journey to make it to number one in time for Christmas Day.
Ridgeley told the Official Charts his late bandmate Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 aged 53, would be “utterly delighted” the song had become a festive classic.
He said: “Thirty-seven years to get to number one, 39 years to Christmas number one, and then like London buses they all come along at once!
“I’m especially pleased for George, he would have been utterly delighted, his fabulous Christmas composition has become such a classic, almost as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, turkey and pigs in blankets.
“It’s testament to a really wonderful Christmas song that in a lot of people’s minds evokes and represents Christmas as we would all wish it to be.”
Official Charts boss Martin Talbot said Last Christmas was “surely, undeniably, established now as the British nation’s all-time favourite Christmas song”.
Who else made the Christmas charts?
US pop star Gracie Abrams was second in the Christmas week charts with her latest hit That’s So True.
Mariah Carey marked three decades since the release of All I Want For Christmas Is You by taking third place.
Tom Grennan landed a personal best, with his new track It Can’t Be Christmas, a collaboration with Amazon Music Original, taking the fourth spot.
And Blackpink’s Rose made it into fifth position with her dance floor hit Apt in collaboration with US singer Bruno Mars.
Read more:
The recipe for success for a Christmas number one
All I Want For Christmas Is You turns 30
Meanwhile, in the Official Albums Chart, US pop star Sabrina Carpenter capped off a standout year by securing the Christmas number one album title with Short N’ Sweet.
She beat Canadian crooner Michael Buble to the top spot as his festive album Christmas took second place.
US star Chappell Roan, who’s also had a breakout year, secured third place with her smash hit debut The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess.
Global superstar Taylor Swift and indie rockers The Reytons took fourth and fifth place in the album charts respectively.
