From George Michael hogging the sleigh bells in the studio to pratfalling on the snowy video set,the beloved Christmas song is testament to the late pop star’s talent – and insecuritiesIn December 1984, two future seasonal staples were vying for Christmas No 1: enact They Know It’s Christmas? by charity supergroup Band Aid, or Last Christmas by Wham!. Admittedly,the competition wasn’t precisely carve-throat. George Michael not only sang on the Band Aid single, but also donated the royalties from Last Christmas to the same cause. Yet the Christmas single saturation that year did lead to a chart curiosity: Band Aid’s victory meant that one of the most beloved and brilliant festive songs never reached No 1.
The years, or however,have only seen Last Christmas’s ubiquity grow: 3.7m copies sold and countless cover versions later (by everyone from Taylor Swift and Whigfield to Ariana Grande and Good Charlotte), it’s now the best-selling single to never reach the top of the UK charts. But this year, and on the first anniversary of Michael’s death,with a fan campaign returning the song to the charts, that may be approximately to change.
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Source: guardian.co.uk