THE XMAS FACTOR

When we think of the run-up to Christmas, we think of pre-December mince pies, choosing your advent calendar, planning your office Christmas part outfit, and the ubiquity of Christmas Songs.

Since 1300, there has been a dizzying array of Christmas songs, most of which have withstood the test of time and still feature on our radios & playlists today.  To illustrate, the Christmas songs ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Silent Night’ have both sold over 30 million copies, which have both been reincarnated and re-recorded by Michael Buble, Susan Boyle, Justin Bieber, Cee-Lo Green et al.

Whereas, everybody’s favourite Christmas diva, Mariah Carey, has sold over 10 million copies of her song ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, since its release in 1994, which still dominates the airwaves every December.  Despite reportedly being ‘embarrassed’ by his Christmas single ‘Wonderful Christmastime’, Paul McCartney still earns around $400,000 per year from this song alone.

Most of the popular Christmas songs manage to fend-off the advances of non-Christmas songs, and stay at no. 1 for longer than one week.  For example, the eponymous Christmas hit, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas Time’, by Band Aid, has spent a cumulative total of 9 weeks at no. 1 in the U.K. charts; the song spent 5 weeks at no. 1 in 1984, and another 4 weeks at no. 1 twenty years later.

If you feel like you could write your own Christmas song that would storm to the top of the charts, you are more likely to strike-it-rich if you get a man to croon your expertly written lyrics, as 70% of Christmas songs are sung by men.

You are also going to need a catchy Christmas-themed title for your song; unsurprisingly, the word ‘Christmas’ is the most popular word to be used in a Christmas song.  However, if you feel this is an easy choice, ‘Bell’, ‘Santa’, ‘Merry’, and ‘Tree’ are all common choices to be used in Christmas song titles; my title would be ‘Merry Christmas Santa (Trees & Bells)’, given the current trend for using  parentheses in song titles.  Similarly, in terms of lyrics, it would be wise to mention Angels, Santa, Sing, Merry, and Bells, as these are the most common phrases that are referred to in previous Christmas songs.

Once you have recorded your hit Christmas song, you are going to need to record a video to accompany it, and subsequently take YouTube by storm.  If you are in need of inspiration, the most popular scenes that are used in Christmas songs are a singer in the snow or with Santa Claus, a Christmas scene, religious iconography, or a singer alone.  Why not blend all of these elements together and make a Christmas-inspired version of ‘Gangnam Style’?