Christmas songs are sometimes met with divided opinions, however one couple hate Wham!’s 1984 anthem ‘Final Christmas’ a lot, they’ve raised £50,000 to purchase the licensing rights to allow them to scrub it from existence.
Talking to the South West Information Service (through the Each day Mail), Hannah Mazetti stated her contempt for the music started when she was 20 (she is now 33), when she labored at a café in Oxford and her boss would play it advert nauseam.
“The proprietor of the cafe had deliberate for a brilliant cosy vacation season and had his personal made CD with a lot of ‘hits’ on it,” she defined. “He was solely in at times, so he didn’t absolutely admire the agony the remainder of the workers felt when ‘Final Christmas’ performed for the 111th time of the working day.”
Mazetti went on to say that she and her husband, Tomas, had the concept to purchase the music’s rights after a buddy allow them to know such a feat may (theoretically) be achieved. On the origins of their endeavour, she stated: “It began final Christmas – pun not meant – once we requested mates how a lot they might be keen to pay by no means to listen to the music once more. Rather a lot it turned out, and when the music began taking part in this November we had been reminded.
“Then somebody advised us it was theoretically attainable to purchase the rights to the music after which take it off all streaming platforms! We requested round amongst our mates and phrase unfold. It’s enjoyable as a result of individuals both love or hate the concept! Possibly subsequent Christmas would be the final Christmas!”
To date, the Mazettis’ marketing campaign has raised a bit of over £51,500 from round 330 contributors. Sadly for them, they’ve a number of million quid to go: the rights to ‘Final Christmas’ are owned by Warner Chappell Music UK, and in response to the Each day Mail, have an estimated price ticket within the ballpark of £15-20million.
The couple have set their aim on the decrease finish of that estimate. Ought to they obtain it, Mazetti stated, they’ll ship the grasp tapes off to a nuclear waste website in Finland “the place it’ll relaxation for no less than two million years”.
Stressing that she and her husband don’t harbour any animosity in the direction of Wham! themselves, Mazetti asserted: “I’m sorry, however that is the way in which it must be. We don’t hate Wham!, however we hate this music. It’s as a result of it’s being performed 5,000 occasions per day, however we felt one thing needed to be performed to help the those that undergo like us.”
Mazetti additionally famous that some individuals have reacted to the couple’s marketing campaign with disdain of their very own. “50 per cent get actually offended and 50 per cent get actually comfortable,” she stated. “Some individuals appear to like to listen to the music 500 occasions a day. And people persons are our enemies.
“They stated that there are even worse songs that needs to be taken off earlier than this – like Mariah Carey‘s ‘All I Need For Christmas [Is You]’ – and that if we don’t prefer it we may put on headphones, and that it’s unusual to need to take away one thing lovely for the remainder of humanity simply because we don’t prefer it.”