Читать книгу It’s Christmas!: Whatever Happened to the Christmas Single? - James King - Страница 9

BAND AID: PATCHING UP EGOS

That memorable Christmas – the one with the Star Wars figurines, Chocolate Orange gluttony, and the distorted voice of George Michael – was an admittedly big season. Alongside Wham! were two other big players aiming for Christmas number one. The obvious competition was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who had already hit the top spot with their first two singles. ‘The Power of Love’, their third, with its nativity-themed video, was their big bid for a festive chart topper. However, by early December, it was usurped as the bookies’ favourite by something even bigger: ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’ by the charity supergroup Band Aid. What would happen in the ensuing weeks? It was quite the chart battle, Holly Johnson versus George Michael versus (amongst others on the Band Aid single) Boy George. Actually, written like that it looks like the campest chart battle ever.

If you gave me Marty McFly’s time-travelling DeLorean, I know exactly where I’d head: Sunday 25th November, 1984 Studio 1 of Sarm Studios in London’s Notting Hill. Formerly owned by Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell, and later by über-producer Trevor Horn, the building on the corner of Lancaster Road and Basing Street was even more of a hive of activity than usual that day. Outside, paparazzi and camera crews jostled for position. Inside, Bob Geldof took a deep breath. It was only 9 in the morning, but he and co-writer Midge Ure had already been in the studio for hours, preparing. Now their guests were arriving. Geldof had been building up to this moment since watching a report on famine in Ethiopia on the BBC’s 6 O’Clock News. Favours had been called in; egos had been smoothed. Geldof needed everyone’s cooperation for just a few hours and then, fingers crossed, a track could be mastered, pressed and released by the end of the week. Before it was even recorded, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ was already being touted as a sure-fire number one. All Geldof had to do was control some of the biggest pop stars of the decade.