G
Guest
Guest
Mat., Gauche, Wills, Ogg, etc.: I had no idea. Anyroad, I'd vote for the JCB song.
ta, Perdita
p.s. Whatever happened to Mr. Blobby?
-------------------
NY Times, December 1, 2005
Britons Ask: Do You Know Who'll Be No. 1 at Christmas? By KELEFA SANNEH
On Monday, the curators of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that after years of rejection, Black Sabbath had finally been voted in (either despite or because of the yearly protests of its singer, Ozzy Osbourne). So in March, the pioneering heavy-metal band is to be honored alongside Blondie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Sex Pistols and - oddly enough - Miles Davis, who had to wait even longer than Black Sabbath for his Hall pass. (Davis died in 1991, and one doesn't imagine this particular slight was high on his list of concerns.)
On the same day, in Britain, the BBC announced the leading candidates for a very different sort of annual musical award. And this was, for a number of reasons, a vastly more entertaining announcement.
It helped, no doubt, that the information came not from a bunch of music-industry veterans but from the British oddsmaker Ladbrokes: a less deliberative body, but perhaps a more trustworthy one. And the award is one that people actually care about, although not, of course, people in America. But in Britain, it's a national obsession: every year, pop stars compete to see who will have the country's most popular song on Christmas Day.
Sometimes, the Christmas No. 1 goes to whoever happens to be making hits; that was the case with the remarkable three-year reign of the Spice Girls, from 1996 through 1998. (The only other three-year run began in 1963, when the Beatles snatched the title from Elvis Presley.) Sometimes the winner is an unlikely long shot: two years ago the title went to "Mad World," a new cover version of an old Tears for Fears song, taken from the soundtrack to the cult movie "Donnie Darko." And sometimes songs are created for the sole purpose of topping the charts on Christmas: the awful but apparently irresistible charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has done it three times (1984, 1989, 2004), in three different versions.
This year's odds, as posted on ladbrokes.com, reflect the continuing popularity of Simon Cowell, the "Pop Idol" and "American Idol" judge; his latest British reality show is "X-Factor," and a bet for this year's winner pays out at 4 to 6. (The finale of "X-Factor" is scheduled for Dec. 17, and a single from the winner will be hurried into shops; in Britain, more than in America, people still buy tons of singles.)
Other leading contenders include the indefatigable boy band Westlife (6 to 1), which has recorded a duet with Diana Ross of her showstopper "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." Crazy Frog, the ribbiting ring tone run amok, pays 16 to 1, putting him (or it) right between Robbie Williams and the Pogues. And Madonna is a long shot at 40 to 1, even though her neo-disco hit "Hung Up" has topped the British charts for three weeks running. Maybe everyone assumes her reign won't last that long. Or maybe she's just not Christmassy enough.
Then there's the sentimental favorite, a fresh-faced duo from Warwickshire with a deceptively exotic name: they call themselves Nizlopi and their entry is "The JCB Song," which pays out at 3 to 1. Theirs is an intensely twee - and intensely hummable - account of a young boy and his father, sharing a ride on a "digger." (JCB is a British manufacturer of excavators and other construction vehicles.)
You can hear it free at jcbsong.co.uk, where you will also be greeted by cutesy drawings of trucks and a simple plea: "Make it Xmas Number 1!" Over a strummed guitar and a mellow beat, we follow a protagonist who's glad to be away from "the bullies and the teachers in school," and gladder still to share a few moments with his father: "We're like giants up here, in our big yellow digger/ Like Zoids or Transformers or maybe even bigger."
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the competition gets more and more shameless. Front-runners often delay the official release date of a single until near Christmas, so as not to waste too many sales in weeks that don't count. And fans, needless to say, are encouraged to vote - that is, buy - early and often. You don't just buy the single you want to hear, you buy the single you would like to see atop the charts. The campaigning is just as fierce as what probably goes on at the Rock and Roll Hall, only it's much less clandestine.
Whereas American listeners don't usually like to be seen laughing at their own favorite songs, Britons seem to feel that pushing unlikely singles to the top of the charts is part of the reason one has charts. That helps explain Christmas 1993, which belonged to a self-titled song by a pinkish creature named Mr. Blobby; it may also explain Christmas 2001, when Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman serenaded the nation with "Somethin' Stupid."
In that sense, a win for Nizlopi would be a break with tradition, a strike against silly songs and cover songs and novelty songs and campy songs. (Though silliness, like everything else, is relative.) One reason to root for "The JCB Song" is the tantalizing possibility that British listeners will spend millions of pounds for the sake of sending a sobering message to themselves.
Maybe that's why the Christmas No. 1 race is such a relief. It's easy for Mr. Osbourne to rail against the Hall monitors. (Like most of us, and unlike Groucho Marx, he wouldn't want to join any club that wouldn't have him as a member.) But in Britain this Christmastime, the losers will have no one to blame but their fans. And, not for the first time, the British listening public will have no one to blame at all.
ta, Perdita
p.s. Whatever happened to Mr. Blobby?
-------------------
NY Times, December 1, 2005
Britons Ask: Do You Know Who'll Be No. 1 at Christmas? By KELEFA SANNEH
On Monday, the curators of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that after years of rejection, Black Sabbath had finally been voted in (either despite or because of the yearly protests of its singer, Ozzy Osbourne). So in March, the pioneering heavy-metal band is to be honored alongside Blondie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Sex Pistols and - oddly enough - Miles Davis, who had to wait even longer than Black Sabbath for his Hall pass. (Davis died in 1991, and one doesn't imagine this particular slight was high on his list of concerns.)
On the same day, in Britain, the BBC announced the leading candidates for a very different sort of annual musical award. And this was, for a number of reasons, a vastly more entertaining announcement.
It helped, no doubt, that the information came not from a bunch of music-industry veterans but from the British oddsmaker Ladbrokes: a less deliberative body, but perhaps a more trustworthy one. And the award is one that people actually care about, although not, of course, people in America. But in Britain, it's a national obsession: every year, pop stars compete to see who will have the country's most popular song on Christmas Day.
Sometimes, the Christmas No. 1 goes to whoever happens to be making hits; that was the case with the remarkable three-year reign of the Spice Girls, from 1996 through 1998. (The only other three-year run began in 1963, when the Beatles snatched the title from Elvis Presley.) Sometimes the winner is an unlikely long shot: two years ago the title went to "Mad World," a new cover version of an old Tears for Fears song, taken from the soundtrack to the cult movie "Donnie Darko." And sometimes songs are created for the sole purpose of topping the charts on Christmas: the awful but apparently irresistible charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has done it three times (1984, 1989, 2004), in three different versions.
This year's odds, as posted on ladbrokes.com, reflect the continuing popularity of Simon Cowell, the "Pop Idol" and "American Idol" judge; his latest British reality show is "X-Factor," and a bet for this year's winner pays out at 4 to 6. (The finale of "X-Factor" is scheduled for Dec. 17, and a single from the winner will be hurried into shops; in Britain, more than in America, people still buy tons of singles.)
Other leading contenders include the indefatigable boy band Westlife (6 to 1), which has recorded a duet with Diana Ross of her showstopper "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." Crazy Frog, the ribbiting ring tone run amok, pays 16 to 1, putting him (or it) right between Robbie Williams and the Pogues. And Madonna is a long shot at 40 to 1, even though her neo-disco hit "Hung Up" has topped the British charts for three weeks running. Maybe everyone assumes her reign won't last that long. Or maybe she's just not Christmassy enough.
Then there's the sentimental favorite, a fresh-faced duo from Warwickshire with a deceptively exotic name: they call themselves Nizlopi and their entry is "The JCB Song," which pays out at 3 to 1. Theirs is an intensely twee - and intensely hummable - account of a young boy and his father, sharing a ride on a "digger." (JCB is a British manufacturer of excavators and other construction vehicles.)
You can hear it free at jcbsong.co.uk, where you will also be greeted by cutesy drawings of trucks and a simple plea: "Make it Xmas Number 1!" Over a strummed guitar and a mellow beat, we follow a protagonist who's glad to be away from "the bullies and the teachers in school," and gladder still to share a few moments with his father: "We're like giants up here, in our big yellow digger/ Like Zoids or Transformers or maybe even bigger."
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the competition gets more and more shameless. Front-runners often delay the official release date of a single until near Christmas, so as not to waste too many sales in weeks that don't count. And fans, needless to say, are encouraged to vote - that is, buy - early and often. You don't just buy the single you want to hear, you buy the single you would like to see atop the charts. The campaigning is just as fierce as what probably goes on at the Rock and Roll Hall, only it's much less clandestine.
Whereas American listeners don't usually like to be seen laughing at their own favorite songs, Britons seem to feel that pushing unlikely singles to the top of the charts is part of the reason one has charts. That helps explain Christmas 1993, which belonged to a self-titled song by a pinkish creature named Mr. Blobby; it may also explain Christmas 2001, when Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman serenaded the nation with "Somethin' Stupid."
In that sense, a win for Nizlopi would be a break with tradition, a strike against silly songs and cover songs and novelty songs and campy songs. (Though silliness, like everything else, is relative.) One reason to root for "The JCB Song" is the tantalizing possibility that British listeners will spend millions of pounds for the sake of sending a sobering message to themselves.
Maybe that's why the Christmas No. 1 race is such a relief. It's easy for Mr. Osbourne to rail against the Hall monitors. (Like most of us, and unlike Groucho Marx, he wouldn't want to join any club that wouldn't have him as a member.) But in Britain this Christmastime, the losers will have no one to blame but their fans. And, not for the first time, the British listening public will have no one to blame at all.
