The YouTube performers LadBaby have launched their fifth bid to score the UK Christmas No 1 single.
Mark and Roxanne Hoyle have covered the Band Aid classic Do They Know It’s Christmas? to raise money for those affected by the cost of living crisis.
As with the couple’s four previous consecutive Christmas No 1s – all sausage roll-themed covers of well-known hits – the new cover will benefit the Trussell Trust, which works to stop hunger and poverty in the UK and operates a network of food banks.
“We never intended to release a fifth Christmas single but as ambassadors of the Trussell Trust we were not prepared to sit back and do nothing in a year when people are struggling more than ever,” the couple said.
“So, a few months ago we approached Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and the Band Aid Trust to ask permission to rework the most iconic Christmas track of all time, Do They Know it’s Christmas? And we were truly honoured when they said yes!”
Following last year’s collaboration with Ed Sheeran and Elton John, this year’s effort will feature MoneySavingExpert’s Martin Lewis and “icons from the music industry” who are still to be unveiled. The rewritten lyrics to the song were approved by Geldof and Ure, said Mark Hoyle.
Lewis told the BBC: “I thought they’d confused me with someone else … Yet once I knew they were serious, and it was for the Trussell Trust, a hugely important charity I’ve a history with, I decided to give it a go, and do it with gusto.”
Mark Hoyle said he approached Lewis because “he knows more than most how to help people in this country”.
LadBaby rival the Beatles for the most Christmas No 1s – but the Hoyles have four consecutive festive hits; the Beatles only managed three.
The single is released on 16 December; this year’s Christmas No 1 will be unveiled on 23 December. They face competition from stalwart streamers Mariah Carey and Wham!, and new efforts from the rap supergroup Sidemen, Lewis Capaldi, Stormzy, Sam Smith and George Ezra.
In the novelty charity single stakes, LadBaby are also up against Basil Brush’s Boom! Boom! It’s Christmas Again featuring the 1993 Christmas No 1 star, Mr Blobby, and the cast of 70s and 80s children’s programme Rainbow.
The Trussell Trust said that 1.3m emergency food parcels were distributed between April and September – more than ever before, and an increase of 52% on the same period in 2019. It said that one in five people referred to its food banks are in working households.
