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This podcast contains seasonal Wham content.

Whamageddon players' discretion is advised.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Everywhere you go.

Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits

from coast to coast.

I'm Chris Mulanfey, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song

Number One series?

On our last episode, we talked about how perennial Christmas

hits, especially in the streaming era, are changing our perceptions of certain holiday hitmakers

and overshadowing their other bigger chart hits from yesteryear. Whether these acts stumbled

into a Christmas hit, like Gene Autry

or Jose Feliciano, or eagerly embraced their new jolly persona like Darlene Love, these chestnut

roasters, as I call them, are potent every December on the radio and Spotify to this day.

In our second part of the episode, I'll dive deeper into this airplay and streaming data

to show just how holiday hits have rebooted the careers of some pop legends.

Last holiday season, in the same week that Donnie Hathaway's This Christmas, made

the American Top 40 for the very first time, over in the United Kingdom, the official

charts company announced a similarly improbable feat. This 37-year-old song had finally topped the British chart for the first time.

And, well, Wammageddon players, you've been warned.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day you give it away. Last Christmas. Go ahead. Sing along if you like. Was recorded in 1984 by the duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgley, then known as Wham.

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