Wham! reflect on Last Christmas' enduring popularity: ‘It’s extraordinary’

31 December 2024, 13:40

'Last Christmas' was crowned Christmas number one for a second consecutive year in 2024.

‘Last Christmas’’ enduring popularity is “extraordinary”, says Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Smooth’s Angie Greaves, the Wham! star shared his thoughts on his and George Michael’s ever-popular Christmas hit.

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“The song is extraordinary. It is Christmas,” Andrew reflected. “It’s woven itself into the fabric of contemporary Christmas, there’s no sense of Christmas I think really for a lot of people these days, without it,” he added.

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Pepsi and Shirlie joined Andrew in sharing their amazement at how ‘Last Christmas’ is still such a festive classic.

“It just still sounds so perfect,” Shirlie said. “What’s amazing with Last Christmas is I’ve never got fed up, I’ve never thought ‘Oh no!’ or ‘I wish it sounded like this or like that.’

“When the video comes on, it doesn’t even feel dated... it’s something to be really proud of, it’s going to be going forever!” she added.

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Pepsi agreed. “And it’s not just a UK thing, it’s an international thing,” she shared. “I live in St Lucia, and you know – you’re doing your shopping and ‘Last Christmas’ comes on and they start singing in the supermarket.”

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During their interview with Angie, the Wham! singers also reminisced about how the band first came together. “Shirley, George and I, we’d gone to the same school, we organised the school band together,” Andrew said.

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“The day before my 18th birthday, I introduced [Shirlie] to Yog,” he added, using George’s famous nickname. “He was my very closest, dearest friend, and we were inseparable for a couple of years... we did everything together, went everywhere, and when we got our record contract, Shirl was part of the presentation.”

Reminiscing about how she got involved with Wham!, Pepsi explained how she was invited to join the band after recording some demo backing tracks at a studio one day.

“I started ad-libbing and I was cut short and I thought right I haven’t got the job, [but] Simon Napier-Bell invited me into the studio and said ‘Would you like to go on tour with a band called Wham!?’” The rest, as they say, is history.

The festive hit has just claimed Christmas number one for a second consecutive year, making it the only song in history to be crowned Christmas number one two years in a row.