"If you listen closely to the start of Wizzard's yuletide standard I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, you'll hear the kerching of a cash register. The sound might have been a winning speck of cynicism in the tinselly facade of 70s consumerism, but five decades on it has proved prophetic the song accounts for nearly all of the band's streams on Spotify."
"There's something mildly aggrieving about this song's annual success overshadowing the rest of Wood's rich oeuvre, according to Alexis Petridis, the Guardian's head rock and pop critic. However, in his rundown of Wood's best tracks, he adds that equally, writing something that becomes part of the fabric of national life is quite an achievement."
"In the early 2000s, there were hardly any Christmas songs in the Top 40 of the week that the Christmas No 1 is crowned. That has steadily risen over the years, and now Christmas songs dominate the charts and usually the same ones each year. Over the past few years, at least half of the Top 40 each Christmas has been the same as the previous year."
A cash-register sound opens Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, which now provides nearly all of the band's Spotify streams. Dark Horse, an SEO company, places Wizzard at the top of a Christmas-reliance chart, finding 97% of their Spotify streams come from holiday music and estimating that value at about 430,000 to the band. Classic Christmas songs increasingly dominate streaming charts, with far more Christmas entries in recent Top 40s than in the early 2000s and many of the same songs recurring year after year. Wizzard's top 10 tracks total 215m streams, with 208m from the holiday single. Roy Wood formed Wizzard after founding The Move and then starting Electric Light Orchestra in 1970; The Move formally split in 1972.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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