Culture of the United Kingdom music of Christmas has always been a combination of sacred and secular, and every year in the UK there is highly publicised competition to be the Christmas number one single, which has led to the production of music which provides the mainstay of festive playlists. Responding to a BBC report on the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, Bob Geldof created the charity supergroup Band Aid who recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas?". It has been Christmas number one three times. Written by Sarah Flower Adams in 1841, the Christian hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" is associated with the sinking of
Band Aid (band) Many of the people involved in the original Band Aid single appeared on the 1984 Christmas edition of "Top of the Pops", along with Slade, The Thompson Twins, Bronski Beat, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Jim Diamond to mime to the record. This was the only time the original Band Aid single was performed live on television. However Bono could not attend, and Paul Weller mimed Bono's line. According to the film made by The Tube on the days of the recording 24–25 November 1984, Bob Geldof says The Edge from U2 was to have played guitar on the track