Song · Band Aid
“Do They Know It's Christmas?” by Band Aid
“Do They Know It's Christmas?” by Band Aid appears on 8 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 1984 and 2023. Its best result is #16 on the 91X Top 191 Songs of the 1980s (1989). In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #62 alternative song of 1984, #2,734 alternative song of all time and #216 of the '80s.
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Bob Geldof and Midge Ure wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1984 with one aim, raising money for the famine in Ethiopia, and then rounded up Band Aid, a supergroup of popular British and Irish musicians, to cut it in a single day in London that November, with Ure producing. It hit UK shops on 7 December 1984 and went straight in at number one, where it sat for five weeks and claimed Christmas number one along the way.
It moved a million copies in week one, a pace no British single matched until Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997", and it topped the charts in 13 other countries. Within a year it had raised £8 million for Ethiopia, far beyond what Geldof had hoped for, and its example sparked "We Are the World", Comic Relief and the Live Aid concert of 1985.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 25 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1984 | 106 |
| 1985 | 72 | 91X San Diego, CA / Tijuana | 91X Top 91 Songs of 1985 | 91 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 16 | 91X | 91X Top 191 Songs of the 1980s (1989) | 191 |
| 1991 | 499 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | CFNY Top 1002 Songs of All-Time (1991 Edition) | 1002 |
| 2004 | 154 | Virgin Radio | Virgin Radio Top 500 Songs of All-Time (December 2004) | 500 |
| 2005 | 140 | Virgin Radio | Virgin Radio Top 500 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) | 500 |
| 2006 | 80 | Virgin Radio | Virgin Radio Top 500 Songs of All-Time (December 2006) | 500 |
| 2023 | 249 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
Also listed as: Do They Know It's Christmas.
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