Last Christmas

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Last Christmas
Wham!
publication November 30, 1984
December 3, 1984
length 4:27 min.
Genre (s) Synth pop
Author (s) George Michael
album The Final /
Music from the Edge of Heaven

Last Christmas is a pop song by the British group Wham! from 1984. The piece, which is about an old love affair, has become a classic of popular Christmas music.

Emergence

The record company of the band Wham! wanted to quickly publish a Christmas carol. According to some sources, George Michael is said to have merely rewritten the text of a piece he had already composed, entitled Last Easter , by adapting it to Christmas and the season. Other sources consider this story to be unbelievable as it has not been confirmed by either the Sony record company or the artist himself.

Video

The video clip for Last Christmas , told with flashbacks, was filmed in a chalet in the Swiss winter sports resort Saas-Fee in the Valais Alps and cost 60,000  GBP . The model Kathy Hill acted as a past love affair, dressed in striking red in the video. The background singers of Wham !, Helen "Pepsi" DeMacque and Shirlie Holliman also play roles . After the band broke up in the summer of 1986, they founded the pop duo Pepsi & Shirlie , which was able to land some hits with songs like Heartache . The video also shows the bassist from Spandau Ballet , Martin Kemp, who was then friend and later husband of Shirlie Holliman.

publication

The single was respectively according to different specifications for the first time on November 30 on December 3, 1984 at the Epic - label released. On the B-side is the piece Everything She Wants, also composed by Michael . At the end of December, the record company decided to swap the A and B sides: Everything She Wants was released as a remix with Last Christmas . As a result, Everything She Wants also became a top 10 hit (eighth place) in Germany. In 1986 the song Last Christmas first appeared on an album by the duo on the compilation The Final in all areas except North America and Japan, where it was released on the album Music from the Edge of Heaven .

Last Christmas sold more than 1.4 million copies in the UK . In December 1984, the single also reached its highest chart position at number two on the British BBC charts. However, the song wasn't a number one hit since the song Do They Know It's Christmas? from Project Band Aid held this position for several weeks. The song also reached number two on the British BBC charts at Christmas 2017. Last Christmas is the UK's best-selling piece of music that never topped the charts. In Germany, Last Christmas has been in the charts in December since 1997 and is one of the most frequently played titles during this period, which is reflected accordingly in the airplay charts .

The single went platinum in Great Britain, Australia , Germany and Italy , and gold in Denmark and Greece . In Denmark and Sweden the song reached number 1 in the charts. The author Sebastian Hammelehle tries to explain the success of the song in an article in the Welt am Sonntag in December 2004 as follows:

“What's really special about the song is that Wham was the first pop band to simply accept the existence of Christmas: They didn't inflate it by trying to revive the spirit of the good old festival of the pre-rock 'n' roll era - but neither did they fight it. [...] The English word last makes the hit completely timeless . It's not about 1983 at all, it's always about the previous year - this time about 2003. Only the really great classics can do this kind of perpetual motion-like self-renewal. "

Shortly after George Michael's death in 2016, the song debuted in the US charts 32 years after its release . Last Christmas reached the US Top 40 for the first time in 2018 . According to Nielsen Music , around 6,000 downloads were sold and over 14 million streams were accessed. The royalties went solely to George Michael and not to his band partner Andrew Ridgeley , who was not involved in the composition and production of the song.

Litigation

Shortly after the publication, there was a legal battle with Barry Manilow . The subject of the dispute was the resemblance of the song to Manilow's hit Can't Smile Without You . An out-of-court settlement was reached, by virtue of which all proceeds from the song in the first year went to Aktion Band Aid. The total is not known; 1.4 million pieces of the single were sold in the first year.

Cover versions

The piece has been covered several times and can also be found on many Christmas samplers . In addition, there is a German-language cover version of the indie pop band Erdmöbel published in 2006 under the title Christmas , which reached number 84 in the German charts, as well as a version by Matthias Reim from 2011 entitled Last Christmas , which reached number 99.

Other cover versions:

Chart positions since 1984

Last Christmas was placed in the German single charts for the 130th time on November 30, 2018, making the single a new all-time record. No other single has been in the official German single charts for longer . Paul and Fritz Kalkbrenner previously held this record with Sky and Sand (129 weeks).

year Chart placements
GermanyGermany DE AustriaAustria AT SwitzerlandSwitzerland CH United KingdomUnited Kingdom UK United StatesUnited States US
1984/85 7
(14 * wks.) 		- 6
(8 weeks) 		2
(13 weeks) 		-
1985/86 - - - 6
(7 weeks) 		-
1986/87 - - - 45
(5 weeks) 		-
1996/97 54
(1 week) 		- - - -
1997/98 39
(4 weeks) 		9
(5 weeks) 		- - -
1998/99 22
(5 weeks) 		20
(2 weeks) 		- - -
1999/2000 33
(5 weeks) 		- - - -
2000/01 37
(5 weeks) 		- - - -
2001/02 26
(6 weeks) 		- - - -
2002/03 32
(5 weeks) 		- - - -
2003/04 18
(7 weeks) 		46
(3 weeks) 		85
(2 weeks) 		- -
2004/05 16
(8 weeks) 		23
(4 weeks) 		82
(5 weeks) 		- -
2005/06 10
(8 weeks) 		19
(4 weeks) 		19
(4 weeks) 		- -
2006/07 13
(8 weeks) 		18
(5 weeks) 		12
(10 weeks) 		- -
2007/08 4
(6 weeks) 		4
(7 weeks) 		10
(7 weeks) 		14
(5 weeks) 		-
2008/09 16
(7 weeks) 		17
(6 weeks) 		12
(5 weeks) 		26
(5 weeks) 		-
2009/10 14
(7 weeks) 		9
(6 weeks) 		14
(3 weeks) 		34
(4 weeks) 		-
2010/11 23
(6 weeks) 		11
(6 weeks) 		27
(4 weeks) 		53
(4 weeks) 		-
2011/12 25
(7 weeks) 		17
(5 weeks) 		34
(4 weeks) 		26
(4 weeks) 		-
2012/13 26
(5 weeks) 		16
(4 weeks) 		24
(3 weeks) 		34
(5 weeks) 		-
2013/14 30
(5 weeks) 		25
(5 weeks) 		37
(4 weeks) 		36
(5 weeks) 		-
2014/15 19
(5 weeks) 		19
(4 weeks) 		12
(4 weeks) 		28
(5 weeks) 		-
2015/16 15
(5 weeks) 		15
(4 weeks) 		19
(5 weeks) 		18
(5 weeks) 		-
2016/17 7
(5 weeks) 		10
(4 weeks) 		4
(5 weeks) 		7
(5 weeks) 		41
(2 weeks)
2017/18 4
(5 weeks) 		5
(5 weeks) 		6
(5 weeks) 		2
(6 weeks) 		43
(2 weeks)
2018/19 3
(5 weeks) 		3
(5 weeks) 		3
(5 weeks) 		3
(5 weeks) 		25
(5 weeks)
2019/20 2
(6 weeks) 		2
(6 weeks) 		3
(6 weeks) 		3
(6 weeks) 		11
(5 weeks)
All in all 2
(140 weeks) 		2
(90 weeks) 		3
(89 weeks) 		2
(89 weeks) 		11
(14 weeks)

Note: * = incl. 9 weeks as B-side of Everything She Wants

Continuous loops

On December 18, 2015, the Antenne Kärnten presenter Joe Kohlhofer played the song 24 times in a row for two hours, for which he locked himself in the studio. On December 20, 2013, Thomas Axmann achieved this 16 times on the Antenne Steiermark . On December 20, 2012, the presenter Oli Bolz had played the song 14 times in a row on private radio station Baden.fm until it was shot.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wham! - Last Christmas , officialcharts.de
  2. ↑ release date
  3. ↑ A catchy tune for eternity: 30 years “Last Christmas” , Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
  4. ↑ a b The neverending story of "Last Christmas" . ( Memento from December 25, 2008 on the Internet Archive ) Netzeitung , December 24, 2008 ( Webcite ( Memento from December 26, 2008 on WebCite ))
  5. ↑ a b Ulli Wenger: A song and its story. Alcazar: "Last Christmas". BR online , December 9, 2009, archived from the original on November 4, 2012 ; accessed on January 31, 2010 .
  6. ↑ "Last Christmas" - Whams ingenious endless loop. Welt online , December 20, 2009, accessed February 18, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Harry Weinger: CBS / Fox Releasing Wham! Compilation . In: Billboard Magazine . March 2, 1985, p. 34 .
  8. ↑ danishcharts.com - Danish charts portal. Retrieved January 6, 2019 .
  9. ↑ swedishcharts.com - Swedish Charts - Singles Top 100 2018-12-28. Retrieved January 6, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Sebastian Hammelehle: A ski lift for eternity . In: Welt am Sonntag , December 19, 2004
  11. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
  12. ↑ Amazing: Retrieved December 18, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Classic hits that only got to No. 2 . dailymail.co.uk
  14. ↑ Last Christmas. coverinfo.de; Retrieved December 9, 2015
  15. ↑ Split - Last Christmas (Wham! Pop-Punk Cover). In: Split. November 28, 2010, accessed December 15, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Official German Charts: “Last Christmas” sets a new all-time record. officialcharts.de, November 30, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018 .
  17. ^ Antenna Carinthia: "Last Christmas" in continuous loop , the press on December 18, 2015
  18. ↑ Christmas madness in continuous loop , Kleine Zeitung on December 20, 2012
  19. ↑ "I then preferred old George" , Spiegel online on December 21, 2012
Wham!
Studio albums

Fantastic • Make It Big • Music from the Edge of Heaven

Compilation albums

The Final • The Best of Wham !: If You Were There

Singles
NoDISPLAY
Fantastic
Wham rap! (Enjoy What You Do) • Young Guns (Go for It) • Bad Boys • Club Tropicana • Club Fantastic Megamix
Make it big
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go • Careless Whisper • Freedom • Everything She Wants
Music from the Edge of Heaven
Last Christmas • I'm Your Man • A Different Corner • The Edge of Heaven • Where Did Your Heart Go?
Tours

Club Fantastic Tour • The Big Tour • Whamamerica! • The Final