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
The Gents (British band) in London and a one-single deal with EMI. In the mid-1980s they became involved with the nationwide mod scene through Mark Johnson's The Phoenix Society of London and played at many mod events at this time, plus undertook a national tour known as the "New Direction National Tour", from May to June 1985 and named after their single release of that time. The Gents also played at the Mod-Aid all-day Band Aid charity event at Walthamstow Town Hall on 15.12.85 and were featured on the double vinyl LP recording of that event. From 2010, Detour Records commenced a programme of