Andrew Ridgeley told the Official Charts his late bandmate George Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 aged 53, would be “utterly delighted” the song had become a festive classic.
Wham! pictured in September 1984, three months before Last Christmas was originally released. Pic: APWham! have made chart history, with Last Christmas becoming the first song to be crowned Christmas number one two years in a row.
First released in December 1984, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley had to wait 39 years to reach the festive top spot.
On the year of release, they were beaten by Band Aid’s charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, a track that’s controversially seen itself revamped and back in the charts this year too.
Now re-released to mark its 40th anniversary, Last Christmas has become the most-streamed and physically purchased song of the week, according to the Official Charts Company.
Last year the track secured the record for completing the longest-ever journey to make it to number one in time for Christmas Day.
Ridgeley told the Official Charts his late bandmate Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 aged 53, would be “utterly delighted” the song had become a festive classic.
He said: “Thirty-seven years to get to number one, 39 years to Christmas number one, and then like London buses they all come along at once!
“I’m especially pleased for George, he would have been utterly delighted, his fabulous Christmas composition has become such a classic, almost as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, turkey and pigs in blankets.
“It’s testament to a really wonderful Christmas song that in a lot of people’s minds evokes and represents Christmas as we would all wish it to be.”
Official Charts boss Martin Talbot said Last Christmas was “surely, undeniably, established now as the British nation’s all-time favourite Christmas song”.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/wham-make-chart-history-with-last-christmas-13277227