Imagine disliking a song to the point where you’re so motivated to buy the rights.
For many, it’s a beloved Christmas classic, but one couple hates Last Christmas by Wham! so much want to take it off the air forever.
Tomas Mazetti, 55, and his wife Hannah, 33, have already raised more than £50,000 to banish the song to the history books – but with the rights estimated to be worth anywhere in the region of £20million they still have a long way to go.
Hannah said her hatred of the tune started 13 years ago when she worked in a cafe in Oxford, where the boss played the song on repeat.
Last festive season she was talking to friends about how much she disliked it still – and how much she would pay to never hear it again, inspiring this year’s online fundraiser.
So far, 327 people have pledged $62,100 (£51,547), but the mum-of-three has a mammoth task ahead of her.
The rights are currently owned by Warner Chappell Music UK and are valued at between $15m and $25m.
Hannah, a painter, who lives in Gothenburg in Sweden, said:
‘I was studying English and worked extra to pay the bills.
‘The owner of the cafe had planned for a super cosy holiday season and had his own made CD with a number of ‘hits’ on it.
‘He was only in now and then, so he didn’t fully appreciate the agony the rest of the staff felt when Last Christmas played for the 111th time of the working day.
‘It started last Christmas – pun not intended – when we asked friends how much they would be willing to pay never to hear the song again.
‘Quite a lot it turned out, and when the song started playing this November we were reminded.
‘Then someone told us it was theoretically possible to buy the rights to the song and then take it of all streaming platforms!
‘We asked around among our friends and word spread. It’s fun because people either love or hate the idea!
‘Maybe next Christmas will be the last Christmas!’
The couple’s three kids, August, 16, Julian, 10, and Ada, seven, are also on board with the mission to rid the world of the song.
They have set a goal of $15m which will take them to the next stage of negotiating with Warner Chappell Music UK, they said.
If the dream comes true, they intend to dump the master recording in a Finnish nuclear waste site ‘where it’ll rest for at least two million years.’
Hannah and Tomas, a writer, said they want it to be known they ‘don’t hate Wham!’ but feel the song is overplayed.
‘I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be,’ she said. ‘We don’t hate Wham!, but we hate this song.
‘It is because it is being played 5,000 times per day, but we felt something had to be done to support the people that suffer like us.’
They said
their mission has received backlash.
’50 per cent get really angry and 50 per cent get really happy,’
‘Some people seem to love to hear the song 500 times a day. And those people are our enemies.
‘They said that there are even worse songs that should be taken off before this – like Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas – and that if we don’t like it we could wear headphones, and that it is strange to want to remove something beautiful for the rest of humanity just because we don’t like it.’
Warner Chappell Music has been approached for comment.
Motivation is a powerful push to do great things. Well, something like that!!!!!