The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York Takes the Title as the Bestselling Christmas Song of All Time on the Amazon.co.uk MP3 Store

Mariah Carey a close second with festive favourite All I Want for Christmas is You, followed by Wham!’s Last Christmas.

 

Rap metal anthem Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine is the best-selling Christmas number one of all time on the Amazon.co.uk MP3 Store.

 

Luxembourg, 20th December 2013: Amazon.co.uk today announced Fairytale of New York by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl as the bestselling festive-themed song of all time on the Amazon MP3 Store.The unconventional Christmas hit has beaten Mariah Carey’s festive classic All I Want for Christmas is You into second place, closely followed by 80s favourite Last Christmas by Wham!

Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday takes fourth place, just ahead of Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, both originally released in 1973. Coldplay’s Christmas Lights (2010) is one of the most recent releases to make the bestsellers lists, taking number seven. Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas follows at number eight, a favourite for those travelling to friends and family for the festive period.

The 1984 recording of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? has stayed a firm favourite taking the number ten slot. Gabriella Cilmi’s Warm This Winter comes in at number 11 showing the power of advertising; the song first became a hit in the UK after featuring in a Christmas TV ad.

The big band sound of Jona Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry brings it in at number 14 despite the song never being intended as a festive hit. Two surprising bestsellers are Lou Monte’s Dominick the Donkey, an Italian Christmas favourite at number six, and the Eddie Stobart Truckers’ novelty cover of 12 Days of Christmas at number 20.

The 80s has proved the best decade for Christmas hits, producing six out of the 20 all-time bestsellers, closely followed by the 70s with five. The oldest recording to make the list is Perry Como’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (1951), taking 18th place.

The top 20 bestselling Christmas-themed songs of all time on the Amazon.co.uk MP3 store are:

 


 

“We can see from the top 20 Christmas songs that they always feature a huge nostalgic sense of desire and melancholy for home, powered by fast-paced harmony. These songs share musical signatures with roots in the Motown of the sixties and even as far back as 19th Century Russian classical music,” said acclaimed British composer Philip Sheppard, famed for arranging and recording the 205 national anthems for the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games.

“Fairytale of New York taking the top spot shows that a good Christmas song returns to people’s playlists every year, enjoyed by new audiences, as well as those that remember it from the year it was released,”said Steve Bernstein, Director, EU Digital Music at Amazon. “It will be exciting to see which of this year’s festive releases stand the test of time so well.”

The top 20 bestselling Christmas number one singles of all time on the Amazon MP3 Store show that people don’t always look for a typically festive tune at Christmastime. Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody is the first Christmas-themed song to make the list at number eight. Rage Against the Machine’s rap metal anthem Killing in the Name takes number one, having stopped The X Factor from getting a fifth consecutive Christmas number one in 2009, and melancholy hit Mad World by Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules comes in at number seven.

With Alexandra Burke’s version of Hallelujah taking the number five spot, and Whitney Houston’s epic ballad I Will Always Love You coming in at number ninethere’s a history of Christmas success for powerhouse female vocalists which bodes well for Sam Bailey.

 

 

 

-Ends-

-Notes to Editors-

 

For more information please contact Cult.Brand:

Emily Airton: Emily.airton@cultbrand.co.uk / 0207 749 6850 / 07816 905 788

 

About Amazon MP3
The Amazon MP3 Store offers customers more than 28 million songs and hundreds of thousands of albums with everyday low prices on bestselling albums. All Amazon MP3s are DRM-free, and work on virtually any device that plays MP3s, including Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, Android phones and tablets, iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and Macs and PCs. Visit www.amazon.co.uk/mp3 for more details.

About AutoRip
Amazon AutoRip is a new service that gives customers free MP3 versions of CDs and vinyl music they purchase from Amazon. When customers purchase AutoRip CDs and vinyl the MP3 versions are automatically added to their Cloud Player libraries where they are available, free of charge, for immediate playback or download – no more waiting for the CD to arrive.

Additionally, customers who have purchased AutoRip albums at any time since Amazon.co.uk first opened its Music Store in 1999 will find MP3 versions of those albums in their Cloud Player libraries – also automatically and for free. More than 350,000 albums, including titles from every major record label, are available for AutoRip, and more titles are added all the time – customers can just look for the AutoRip logo. Visit www.amazon.co.uk/AutoRip for more details.

About Cloud Player
Cloud Player is a service that enables customers to securely store their personal music in the cloud and play it on a wide range of devices. Amazon Cloud Player is automatically integrated into Kindle Fire, so when a customer turns on their device, they can enjoy all the benefits of Cloud Player right out of the box. Customers can visit www.amazon.co.uk/cloudplayer or download the app on iOS or Android.

Amazon.co.uk Cloud Player eliminates the need to download files before playing them. MP3 songs and albums customers purchase from Amazon – even those purchased in the past – can be automatically saved to Cloud Player, so customers have a secure backup copy of the music they buy at Amazon, free of charge. Customers can also import the rest of their music, including music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs. All Amazon purchases and the first 250 imported songs are stored for free, or customers can import up to 250,000 songs for £21.99 per year.

About Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk opened its virtual doors in October 1998 and strives to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavours to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.

Amazon.co.uk and other sellers offer millions of new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Baby, Books, Car & Motorbike, Clothing, DIY & Tools, DVD, Electronics & Photo, Grocery, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Jewellery, MP3, Music, Musical Instruments & DJ, Office, PC, Pet Supplies, Shoes, Software, Sports & Leisure, Toys & Games, Video Games and Watches.

Kindle is the world's bestselling e-reader family and Kindle Paperwhite is our most advanced e-reader. It features new display technology with higher contrast, the next generation built-in light, a faster processor, the latest touch technology, and exclusive new features designed from the ground up for readers. Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, features improved fonts and faster page turns. The new Kindle Fire HDX features a stunning exclusive 7" or 8.9" HDX display, a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor, 2x more memory, and 11 hours of battery life, as well as exclusive new features of Fire OS 3.0. The all-new Kindle Fire HD includes an HD display, high-performance processor and dual speakers at a breakthrough price.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business.

Amazon.co.uk is a trading name for Amazon EU S.à.r.l, Amazon Services Europe S.à.r.l and Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l. All three are wholly owned subsidiaries of global online retailer Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), located in Seattle, Washington. Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.comwww.amazon.co.ukwww.amazon.dewww.amazon.co.jp

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As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment centre optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

 "Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Amazon.Co.UK Ltd's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report or Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year.

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December 19, 2013 7:05pm ET by Cult. Brand   Comments (0)

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