This Christmas marked 25 years since the original release of The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl’s classic Christmas song ‘Fairytale of New York’. To celebrate this anniversary the single was re-released on December 3rd in two formats with new cover art.

Since its original release in the Eighties 'Fairytale of New York' has become one of the most loved Christmas pop songs of all time and has made an appearance in the Top 20 every year since 2005. Last year music licensing body PPL announced it as the most-played Christmas song of the century, and it has now sold over a million copies in the UK. The song was recently voted the UK's second favourite No. 2 single of all time in a poll conducted by BBC Radio 2 and the Official Charts Company.

The song is adored by the public and press alike, with The Observer dubbing it “a secular carol with a spiritual resonance (and) an impregnable slice of dirty realist redemption... Strangely, it's something to believe in.”

Shane MacGown shared his own thoughts about the impact of the song in The Guardian Arts blog; “In Irish pubs where they still sing, Fairytale has become as much a standard as Danny Boy or The Fields of Athenry. So I'm like the writers of all those traditional standards, except I'm not anonymous. Or dead."