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Ellie Goulding scores her third UK Number 1 single with River
Ellie's cover of Joni Mitchell's Christmas folk song climbs all the way to Number 1, seeing of competition from several festive classics.
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Congratulations to Ellie Goulding, who claims the final Number 1 song of 2019 and the decade with River.
The cover of Joni Mitchell’s Christmas folk song zooms 11 to 1 to earn Ellie her third Number 1 single, following Burn (2013) and Love Me Like You Do (2015).
River was released through Amazon Music as part of their Amazon Original series in late November and has been a popular hit over the festive season.
MORE: Every Official UK Number 1 single ever
Ellie, who celebrates her birthday on December 30, told OfficialCharts.com: "I’m so over the moon that I got the chance to sing such a beautiful song so close to my heart by one of the best songwriters of all time - someone who inspired me greatly for the next album and it makes me so happy that people have also become new Joni fans as a result.
"It’s been a rollercoaster of a year but can’t think of a better birthday present than being the last Number 1 of the decade. Thank you so so much for listening and supporting me for so many years - I can’t wait for you to hear the album early next year and I’ll see you all on tour.”
The song scores 78,000 chart sales this week to claim the top spot, seeing off strong competition from three Christmas classics: Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You (2), Last Christmas by Wham! (3), and Fairytale of New York by The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl (4).
Last Christmas sets a new streaming record this week, notching up a massive 17.1 million plays. It’s the biggest week of streams for a song in the UK ever, overtaking Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings, which racked up 16.9 million plays in a week in January 2019.
With Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, most of this week’s Top 40 is made up of popular festive hits. Others that rank in this week’s Top 10 are: Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone (6); Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas (7); Elton John’s Step Into Christmas (8); John Legend’s Happy Christmas (War Is Over), another new Amazon Original (9); and Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday (10).
Further down, other Christmas songs that set new all-time chart peaks are: Sia’s Santa’s Coming For Us, up 19 to Number 17; Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree, up 12 to Number 21; Katy Perry’s Cozy Little Christmas, up 21 to Number 22; Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms (30); Michael Buble’s Holly Jolly Christmas (32); The Ronettes’ Sleigh Ride (34); and Dean Martin’s classic Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!, which makes its UK Top 40 debut at Number 39.
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MJ
Matthew Jones
“Accurate and transparent - our charts come with a guarantee of accuracy and transparency. We won’t hide behind a confusing formula which only a mathematician can understand. We pride ourselves on the transparency of our charts and commit ourselves to being totally open on the process behind our charts.”
You have broken your guarantee. You have no pride. You’ve committed yourself to being silent. Shame. Shame. Shame!
julesin09
Rigged
de Sascha
Shame Mimi didn't make it.
It's overdue.....
MJ
Matthew Jones
She did make it. The official charts have screwed up the numbers. Read Jay’s comment from earlier. The official charts would rather be silent and ignore us than to correct their mistake. Ellie is really second place. I doubt she’d even be in the top 20 at all if she hadn’t partnered with such a scummy company.
Jonathan Gardner
PLEASE EXPLAIN why Mariah is #19 on Video Streaming despite having the top trending/most viewed videos in the UK over Christmas? How did she fall when views increased? Looks like something was missed. Fans allege at least 6000 stream-equivalent units have been missed - more than enough to put Mariah at #1
https://twitter.com/MariahUkUpdates/status/1211119081744674816
Jay1988
To those of you who are confused about Wham! breaking the streaming record:
Mariah actually achieved more audio streams than Wham did. That's why she's at #1 in the audio streaming chart. However, the record that Wham have broken also takes into account video streaming, as well as audio. According to OCC's data, Wham managed a lot more video views than Mariah, which is ultimately what gave Wham the edge for their statistic.
Wham is at #1 in the video streaming chart. OCC only have Mariah at #19, down from last week's #5. I think everyone here would agree that this is suspicious. Particularly when you notice the entry at #13, which is "Jukebox Heaven - All I Want For Christmas Is You". This is a cheap cover version from 2011. See it for yourself here: https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/video-streaming-chart/ OCC have clearly made a big mistake there. It appears that they have accidentally given some of Mariah's video streams to that random covers act. Well, I say "some"... it's actually well over 800,000 streams. Some of you may realise that a couple of brand new Mariah Carey videos for All I Want for Christmas Is You were released last week. Perhaps, in error, the OCC mistakenly didn't combine new video streams with Mariah's original video, and have somehow given those Mariah streams to Jukebox Heaven instead. I hope the OCC will acknowledge this error.
~
Even though (according to OCC) Wham have more overall streams (audio & video) than Mariah managed... when their streams are converted into sales, it actually works out that Mariah has more sales from streaming than Wham have. This may seem very confusing, but the reason for this is because of premium streams vs. ad-funded streams. Premium means you have a subscription (i.e. Spotify Premium), ad-funded means you're listening/watching for free & hear/see adverts. Premium streams convert into much higher sales than ad-funded streams do.
Mariah had higher premium *and* ad-funded audio streams than Wham, therefore Mariah has higher sales from audio streams. Although Wham had higher video streams than Mariah, the vast majority of videos are ad-funded views (i.e. YouTube)... and this converts into relatively small sales.
So there you have it, Mariah achieved higher streaming sales // Wham achieved a higher streaming listen/view count.
mundomariah
What it really seems is that OCC has stolen Mariah the #1 spot. It is unbelibeable, you can check at KWORB web that for instance, Mariah was #1 on Youtube during 25 dec with 2135527 streams and even during 26th was number 1 so its completely imposible to be #19 on Video streams. Don't know if they will redo the charts with all these proof, I doubt it. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7060badeaaeac865387a64aa92884b4c154d66d24b93d01a9d3ceb3d96b10db2.png
SH
Scott Harris
Okay! Biggest surprise of the year! Didn't think 'River' would maintain the top spot considering that last prediction, but Ellie Goulding has managed to pull through and score the first #1 of 2020, congrats to her!
Yes, these charts are released a week in advance, so technically 'River' is the first UK #1 of the new decade while simultaneously being the last #1 of the 2010's.
Paul Anthony Searle
why is noone chatting about LadBaby's massive drop from Number 1 ? Is this the most places dropped by a former chart topper in history? if not what is? As for the Christmas songs they too will drop like a stone now the holidays are over.
Kasper Elbjørn
Is this the biggest drop ever?
Piran
Because there have been much bigger drops over the past couple of years.
We had 'I Don't Care' drop off the chart entirely from #2 when 'No.6 Collaborations Project' impacted the chart, then 'Three Lions' fell 1-97 last summer following the Football World Cup after we lost to Croatia in the semi-final.
A
Alan
Nice to see EVEN 1950's Seasonal classics like Dean Martin's let it snow enter the top 40 ..
MJ
Matthew Jones
Pathetic chart manipulation by Amazon and Polydor. Find it hard to believe that Ellie has legitimately earned such streams genuinely on one single platform (against physical purchases, Spotify, Google Play Music, Apple Music) without Amazon purposefully swaying their algorithms and playlists to play it over other Christmas hits.
This is only just going to continue unless the rules are changed. Ellie doesn’t deserve this position and the public deserves better than to have a corporate tax avoiding company like Amazon abusing their power and tech to decide the number one. Mariah was robbed.
thierry henon
Extremely happy for Ellie and do hope next year that Mariah will finally get her song to number 1!! She was so close this year again....
A
Amie
Mariahs AIWFCIY is soo close to reach #1 but thankfully its #1 in Streaming Charts but hope next week it will be #1.ENOUGH WITH THAT STUPID RULES.
Piran
I think Mariah should've been #1 too, but there's no chance of it getting there next week.
Every Christmas song will likely drop out, except maybe 'River'!
JoeNak
Wouldn't this actually be the first number 1 of the 2020s?
JF
Josh F
Sort of, technically the chart does go through 2020 but the song got to number one on the 27th and not actually in 2020 itself if that makes sense lol
Piran
Yeah, it'll be a #1 single until at least the 3rd.
MrDannyDoodah
No. And even the following week's chart (running 3rd to 9th January) is based on sales from 27th Dec to 2nd January, so even that chart is still really a 2019 chart not a 2020 chart. The first new number one of 2020 will really be announced on 10th January, though even then it could be something staying/returning, rather than genuinely new.
Piran
Gutted that Mariah got blocked at #2 again for another year, but I do love Ellie's cover, so it's not all bad news!
I'm thrilled to see WHAM! break a streaming record this week though! It's an iconic festive classic, so it absolutely deserves that honour. :)
Rob Parkinson
Crazy so if acr wasnt in place and wham had the most streams Mariah must have sold a lot of vynal this week too
Alfred Lock
It certainly did and festive sanity is restored in the charts..you just cannot beat the power of the oldies over today's modern stuff
Piran
Oh yeah, we'll see how many Christmas songs released today are still in the charts in about 30 years from now, although I doubt it'll be many.
Classics like: 'All I Want For Christmas Is You', 'Last Christmas' & 'Fairytale Of New York' will be coming back to the Official Chart every December for plenty of years to come! ;)
Piran
It was mostly Spotify & Apple Music, especially the former given how many records Mariah broke there!
I think both her & WHAM! got more than 1.5 million streams there on Christmas Day, which is the highest I've seen since Ed Sheeran back in 2017 when he released 'Shape Of You' & 'Castle On The Hill' on the same day.
Rob Parkinson
Yes but wham had the most streams for a song in a week ever, beating previous holder Arianna Grande which is an amazing achievement, most of those streams were clearly on Amazon but had acr not been in place then which one would have been higher between Mariah and Wham as it was physical sales that made Mariah chart higher.
Piran
I also think 'Dance Monkey' could've still been in the Top 10 without ACR too, since it's gone back to dominating all metrics significantly now that the Christmas songs are dropping away.
Rob Parkinson
I wonder if that will take dance monkey off acr if it has having an increase in streaming numbers again?
Piran
It would need to increase by at least 25% in overall streams for this tracking week, then it would be taken off ACR for the chart that follows next Friday's one (which would be announced on the 10th).
Anyway, JB will undoubtedly be #1 that week, so there's still probably no chance of Tones & I reclaiming the top spot!
mundomariah
It's a pity Mimi didn't take the number 1 spot. By the way, AIWFCIY is #1 at streaming chart, but Last Christmas set a new streaming record? How is that?
Rob Parkinson
Which streaming chart are you looking at? It was no.1 on Amazon most of the week until xmas day when Ellie goulding surpassed it but wham is on acr and ellie isnt. Mariah had the additional extra from the new physical formats released this week
mundomariah
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/audio-streaming-chart/ Mariah is #1 and Last Christmas #2
Rob Parkinson
Makes no sense then if wham have had the most streams ever in a week but Mariah is higher on the streaming chart?