The fixation on which tracks secures Number One on the charts is a curiously British fixation. America doesn’t have the same fascination with the festive Billboard rundown – there’s something about our mindset that longs for a hotly contested race, with the underdog emerging triumphant. In the 21st century, however, the Christmas number one has become ever more fractured – there’s the impact of streaming, for one, and also the removal of Top Of The Pops from the schedules, reducing the visibility of the charts in our everyday lives.
In the absence of generation-splitting Top 40 rows while we munch down on turkey sandwiches, however, one phenomenon is sure to kick-start debate this Christmas. LadBaby’s sausage roll obsession has secured three festive number ones in a row, catapulting them from already-popular married YouTube vloggers to become a national phenomenon, matching painful sausage roll-based puns against karaoke favourites.
Opening in 2018 with a pastry-and-meat take Starship’s ‘We Built This City’, Ladbaby continued their run with a flaky cover of Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll’ – retooled, naturally enough, as ‘I Love Sausage Rolls’. 2020 saw the vloggers nail top spot for the third year in a row, matching a record held jointly by The Beatles and Spice Girls with ‘Don’t Stop Me Eatin’.
In amongst the increasingly painful puns lay an important charity message. All proceeds went to the Trussell Trust, the biggest foodbank organisation in the country; 2020’s single – as tough on the ears as may have been – paid for 70,000 food parcels across the country, providing an invaluable boost to the organisation’s coffers.
Initially, Ladbaby weren’t sure whether to go for a record-breaking fourth number one or not. Yet temptation proved to be irresistible, with LadBaby releasing a sausage roll based remix of the brand new Ed Sheeran and Elton John single ‘Merry Christmas’ – titled, simply ‘Sausage Rolls For Everyone’.
Aesthetically, this is truly scraping the barrel of the Roses tin. Ed ‘n’ Elton’s track is scarcely even on streaming services before its being parodied. In the past, LadBaby picked age-old favourites, before adding new lyrics in a kind of Colin-the-office-joker-does-karaoke kind of way. Comparatively few people have even heard Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s single, yet it’s being re-worked before the sprouts can even be burst from their packet. – In a way, it’s savvy marketing. Previous LadBaby hits have been dependent on paid-for sales – downloads and CDs – while being relatively light on streaming numbers. This time round, you’d imagine Spotify’s algorithm will simply load up LadBaby after fans heard Ed ‘n’ Elton’s dulcet croons – almost guaranteeing LadBaby the chart pinnacle before the race even starts.
Ed Sheeran is an enthusiastic champion of the remix, commenting: “I’m proud to be supporting and featuring on LadBaby’s very fun rework of Merry Christmas. All profits will be donated to The Trussell Trust which is a very wonderful and important charity, so make sure you stream it, buy it and play it on repeat.”
Yet there are signs that this year LadBaby have just gone a little too far. The unfamiliarity of the core song, the fact that Ed ‘n’ Elton’s original is already producing charity donations, and the feeling that the Christmas chart race is being skewed towards one unarguably successful campaign are all producing a social media backlash.
There is also the wider context the song is being released in. The pandemic has crippled the economy, sending the use of food banks soaring – indeed, the Trussell Trust themselves reported a 33% increase in use across 2020. With the impact of coronavirus leaving many families in poverty, it’s clear that we’re facing an emerging, one that the charity sector shouldn’t be left to deal with alone.
But for all their well-intended good wishes, the couple behind LadBaby remain devoutly apolitical. Speaking to the Guardian in 2019, Mark Hoyle refused to say who he voted for at the last general election, saying only of the new Conservative administration: “I’m sure they’re gonna do a great job,” before adding that the country had to have faith that “the right people” had been voted in.
LadBaby themselves have enjoyed a huge boost to their overall profile thanks to the festive chart runs. The Daily Star estimated their wealth as £70,000 in 2018 – after three No. 1 singles that has now increased to more than £1.5 million.
Let’s be clear about this: Clash has no doubts about LadBaby’s honourable intentions, or of those buying the singles. The pain of hunger is something no child should ever have to go through – the humiliation of not being able to provide for their family is something no parent should ever have to bear. But hunger isn’t a natural issue, it’s a failing of the country we’re living in, and the political structures that been put in place. Increasingly, the apathy surrounding LadBaby echoes a number of concerning elements in the nation we find ourselves in – a country that claps for key workers on Thursday evenings, only to stand by when those same people aren’t backed financially. A country that stands transfixed by a 99 year old war veteran and his efforts to raise money for the NHS, as opposed to voting in a government who would offer real and lasting commitments to those on the ground.
There’s a lingering sense with LadBaby that this isn’t changing anything – indeed, it could even be letting the powers-that-be off the hook. Put simply: what kind of country are we living in where the only thing that stands between children going hungry on Christmas Day is this dose of absolute, utter noise pollution?
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