LadBaby’s reign of Xmas number one terror is over! Why today is a euphoric day for music

Their five year run of songs were for charity, but there’s no one it served more than themselves

5 months ago

Since 2018, Mark and Roxanne Hoyle – a duo known tediously as LadBaby – have ran five successful consecutive campaigns to get to the coveted Christmas number one spot on the UK chart. As someone under the age of 30 who uses the internet to find content more amusing than watching two aging millennials fake pranks and marital sagas, I had never heard of LadBaby until this 2018 venture that has caused me nothing but migraines for half a decade. Boy oh boy, do I now know of LadBaby. Don’t we all. But today, the end is officially nigh – Mark and Roxanne Hoyle have confirmed LadBaby will not be entering the ring for the Christmas number one this year – it’s over. Today is a great day for music, and here’s why this entire saga has always been nothing but dark sided, self serving and insidious.

In 2018, we had to endure a cover of Starship’s We Built This City from LadBaby. Instead of rock and roll, Mark and Roxanne build the city on sausage rolls. Much hilarity ensues, of course. Would like to stress again this is not 2008, where t-shirts bellowing “sex, drugs and sausage rolls” haunted the high street – but in 2018. If you’d like to know why LadBaby’s humour hadn’t progressed in the decade since sausage rolls were the peak of comedy, I have no answers.

LadBaby committed to the bit. In 2019, we had I Love Sausage Rolls to the tune of I Love Rock n Roll. In 2020, in case a global pandemic wasn’t enough pain and suffering for us all, we had Journey’s lesser known song Don’t Stop Me Eatin’. 2021 saw Elton John and Ed Sheeran shamelessly gobble up some of the attention with Sausage Rolls For Everyone, a “comedy” redo of Elton and Ed’s Merry Christmas – a bad song that would have felt like a magnum opus if it beat the “comedy” sausage roll mix featuring the Hoyles. Lastly, we got Food Aid – a dirge and tasteless redo of Band Aid featuring the Hoyles and… Martin Lewis. Sausage rolls are once again indeed mentioned.

LadBaby have confirmed today that after their fifth number one, they’re packing it in. I’d suggest this is less out of the goodness of their hearts, but more to do with the fact that last year their number one achievement made half the sales of the other years.

Via Official Charts

It’s taken its time, but it’s clear that the public are growing weary of LadBaby – when it comes to Christmas number one, we’ve BEEN over it. Why? Because despite the fact LadBaby has positioned this number one endeavour that has seen him beat The Beatles’ record for most Christmas number one singles as a noble act for charity, it has been entirely self serving and profile building. Because despite LadBaby’s apparently noble efforts, we are yet to see the end of foodbanks in this country. Perhaps LadBaby should have angled their campaigns more towards criticism of the government who caused the astronomical rise for a need for foodbanks rather than trying to convince the general public to buy their single.

LadBaby have in fact lauded the Conservative government, not criticised. Well, they’ve been “apolotical”, but criticised rival Christmas number one triers The Kunts for their song “Boris Johnson Is STILL A F*cking C*nt, saying it takes “a certain type of person” to download a song with that title. Yes Mark, it takes someone principled and brave enough to call out who’s in power rather than revelling in the pastry nonsense you’ve peddled for half a decade.

Mark and Roxanne Hoyle have as LadBaby been the chart’s equivalent of Facebook mums. They have peddled shite content, shite music and shite merch under the guise of do-gooders whilst building their profile. They’ve released sausage roll themed children’s books. Roxanne has a clothing range. They have millions of YouTube subscribers, views and social media followers.

They did it for charity, but they came out the winners – always. Now it’s time for the Christmas number one to have a gorgeous, new era. Perhaps it will go to something political, a la The Kunts. Perhaps it will go to a festive classic, like Mariah Carey or Wham. I’d be keen to see a renaissance for a newer Christmas classic, like Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree or Ariana’s Santa Tell Me. As long as I’m not hearing about sausage rolls, it will be a very merry Christmas indeed.