Christmas 1972, ‘Little’ Jimmy Osmond became the youngest person to ever reach number one in the UK charts, at aged 9 years and 8 months, and still holds that record to this day. I think it crops up every now and then on lists of ‘worst/most annoying songs ever’.
Anyway I still chose to cover it, but made a wise decision to sing this at a sensible pitch and not in a squeaky 9 year olds voice!!
Interesting, I, now remember this for some reason.
Good track, cover - well done.
your covers of these #1 hits show me how ignorant i am og britiah music, despite my avid consuption and imitation of so many hits durinf the britih invasion, tpunk rock, and britpop. this is a swift, breezy song that you bring to life nicely, and im so glad that you decided not to affect the voice of a pre-adolescent
I think the Christmas number one may be a red herring as to what the British music charts are really doing, there is much higher chance of a one hit wonder or at the very least ‘one hit remembered’, as with Jimmy Osmond, Johnny Mathis and the Flying Pickets.
I’ve been doing a bit more digging on Wikipedia, and it’s interesting to see where the international crossover occurs. There were 4 Beatles Christmas number ones in the 60s, so that’s a given that they would be widely known, plus other songs that kind of transcend a knowledge of the charts- Return to Sender by Elvis Presley, I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston, Last Christmas by Wham! and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Then there are a handful of (UK) artists who are reasonably well known- Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Spice Girls- but never had quite the same impact as they did at home.
More surprising to me is a few acts who seem to have had minimal chart success in the US, or haven’t even tried to, but who are household names here. The main two examples of this are the Irish boyband Westlife, who had a total of 13 number ones between 1999 and 2006 (only one at Christmas), and Cliff Richard who has had 14 UK number ones, including 3 at Christmas, over 40 top 10 hits in the 60’s alone and up until the mid 2010’s was the third highest selling singles act in the UK behind Elvis and The Beatles.
