Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' is smashing the UK charts thanks to Brexit
Move over Lewis Capaldi, Dua Lipa, and even Billie Eilish. The current chart-topper in the UK is Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". And it's all down to Brexit.
The UK is mere hours away from Brexit. On Jan. 31 it will depart the European Union after the country voted to leave in the 2016 referendum.
Cast your mind back to June 2016 and you'll recall the neck-and-neck closeness of the referendum result (51.9 percent voted Leave, 48.1 percent voted Remain). Four years later, embattled Remainers and Leavers are once again going head to head. This time it's a battle of the music charts, with each side vying for a number 1 spot.
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This time around, Remainers are winning. Which makes a change, frankly.
Both Leavers and Remainers are campaigning on social media, primarily Twitter, to get their respective anthems to the top of the charts. Currently soaring at number 1 on the UK iTunes chart is Dutch violinist and lavish concert director André Rieu’s version of Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy."
Bit random, you might be thinking. Well, there's actually a very good reason why Remainers are putting their money on this song in the run-up to exiting the EU. A version of Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy" is the Council of Europe's organisational anthem, also known as "Anthem of Europe." It's used to represent Europe as a continent as well as the EU.
Currently charting in second position is a song called "17 Million F***-Offs" by British comedian Dominic Frisby. That song is currently being backed by camp Leave, who are jubilant about the country's imminent departure from the EU. As you can probably tell from its title. the song is riddled with F-bombs.
Given that Brexit is the most divisive political issue in modern British history post-WW2, this chart battle is deeply unsurprising to many of us.
Perhaps it's time for Rihanna and Adele to drop their long-awaited albums.
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
