The good news is that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” might be slipping as the world’s most popular holiday song. The not-so-good news: It’s being supplanted by George Michael’s “Last Christmas.” So people are trading retro-Spector for ’80s synth-pop.
Billboard has a chart called the Global 200 that tracks streaming plays and digital downloads from multiple countries. Carey’s tune has topped it for weeks every December since the chart debuted in 2020, the only holiday song to reach No. 1 – until this week, when Wham! displaced it. She still tops the Holiday 100, which is based on U.S. sales and airplay.
Wham! was a partnership between George Michael and school chum Andrew Ridgeley, but “Last Christmas” was all Michael’s doing. He wrote the song one February after getting dumped over the holidays and played all the instruments (synthesizer, bass and drum machine) himself.
Unless you’ve got a taste for synth-pop, the song can become almost as grating as Carey’s chestnut, but at least all the royalties from “Last Christmas” go to charity. The song was released in 1984 and was kept from becoming the UK’s Christmas No. 1 that year by the Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” so Wham! donated their royalties too. “Last Christmas” has made up for that second-place finish in the years since – it’s still selling while “Do They Know It’s Christmas” has become widely scorned for its paternalistic attitude toward Africans.
“Last Christmas” finally became the UK’s Christmas No. 1 in 2023, 39 years after its initial release, setting a UK chart record in the process. The version you hear on the radio is a re-recording, made the next year for a Wham! album. This is the seldom-heard original single.
Hundreds of people have covered the song. James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers does an acoustic version that might strike you as easier on your ears, as it strips away the offending synthesizer.
