It’s the Christmas chart!  No, really, it is – because the UK defines the Christmas number one as whatever record is number 1 on Christmas Day.  This year Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, and so the Christmas number one is determined by the charts announced on the preceding Sunday – covering sales from 12-18 December.  All rather artificial – next week’s chart will be a better guide to what people actually bought in Christmas week – but the rules are the rules.

Last year, a surge of anti-X Factor sentiment and general sense of mischief (combined with chart rules that weren’t really designed to deal with multiple purchases that couldn’t plausibly be blamed on record company chart-hyping) led to the unlikely spectacle of Rage Against The Machine achieving a Christmas number 1 with “Killing In The Name”.  Strangely enough, capitalism has not fallen in the intervening year, and Simon Cowell continues to do quite nicely, thank you.  Once again, no major act is prepared to go head to head with the X Factor winners’ single, and the result is a strange chart, in which virtually every new entry is either connected with X Factor or a reaction against X Factor, and music as we know it is more or less suspended.  There’s one unrelated Christmas single further down the chart – and one lone new entry for an actual regular single.  It’s a strange time.

Anyway, the 2010 Christmas number one is (inevitably) the X Factor winner’s single, “When We Collide” by Matt Cardle.  Matt was the token “vaguely credible” entrant this year – i.e. he owns a Coldplay album and possibly something by U2 – and to be fair, he does have a good voice for that sort of thing.  Now that the voting figures have been released, we know that he won every vote except for week one (when he came second).  He’s also been suffering from flu or something over the last few weeks, so this record doesn’t exactly catch him at his best.  But regardless, your Christmas Number One:

The song is an unusual choice for a Simon Cowell act.  For a change, this year each of the potential winners was assigned a different “first single” – perhaps in recognition that it was impossible to find a song that could conceivably work not only for Matt, but also for diva-in-training Rebecca Ferguson, boy band One Direction and rapping urchin Cher Lloyd.  Searching for something vaguely indie yet reassuringly rousing, they’ve ended up in the realms of heartfelt rock, and “Many of Horror” by Biffy Clyro, a number 20 hit from January.  They’ve given it a friendlier title (after the first line of the chorus), and thrown in a key change, but it’s the same song.

As is also by now traditional, loads of people have rushed out to buy the original, which duly re-enters the chart at number 8.  Compare and contrast.

The original’s better, naturally, but it does seem a bit churlish for people to complain about X Factor acts covering this sort of thing.  Do you want them to do decent songs or not?

Biffy Clyro, a Scottish band with a truly awful name, have notched up 15 chart hits since they started in 2002.  This wasn’t one of their biggest, but then it was the fourth single from the “Only Revolutions” album.  The exposure will bring them to the attention of a wider audience who’d probably enjoy them, but this still isn’t their biggest hit – that was “Mountains”, a number 5 hit in 2008.

The number 2 slot goes to “What’s My Name” by Rihanna, who was on the X Factor final to promote it, and has a staggering five songs in the top 40 – the others being “Only Girl (in the World)” at 7, “Who’s That Chick” with David Guetta at 15, “Love the Way You Lie” with Eminem at 39, and “Unfaithful” – the song she performed with Matt Cardle on the final – re-entering at 31.  The original release got to number 2 in 2006.

Number 3 is the most successful of the anti-X Factor chart campaigns – “Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen.  A novelty hit in America in 1963, it’s never previously charted in the UK, though it’s vaguely known for cropping up in film soundtracks, such as Full Metal Jacket.  The actual song is a medley of two not altogether dissimilar records by the Rivingtons (who’ve never had a hit in Britain either) – “The Bird’s The Word” and “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow”.  It’s basically the 1960s equivalent of doing a ska-punk joke cover version, I guess.

The Trashmen single rather sneaked under the media radar.  They were busy paying attention to a much more ludicrous anti-Cowell single, which actually tails in at an underwhelming number 21 – “4′ 33″” by John Cage. The joke, you see, being “Cage Against The Machine.”  Quite.  Yes, it’s the notorious completely silent composition – or, if you prefer, the composition where the idea is to make you listen to the ambient noise for just over four and a half minutes, because it’s never really silent.  Regardless, I think this was a bit misjudged for a variety of reasons.  A lot of people bought “Killing in the Name” because they actually like it, and it’s a song that works well as an anti-establishment campaign.  And this comes only a month after the Royal British Legion reached number 20 – yes, a place higher – with their rather less smackable video single “Two Minute Silence.” Frankly, this just strikes me mainly as holier-than-thou smugness.  But judge for yourself  – here’s the video.  The performance starts at around 1:50, though you might like to start at 1:00 so you can hear them all congratulate themselves on being CREATIVE. Precious little angels that they are.

At number 32, it’s the only regular single to enter the charts this week – “Invincible” by Tinie Tempah featuring Kelly Rowland. These are album track downloads based on advance publicity for a single that’s getting a proper release in the post-Christmas lull, so chances are it’ll climb further.  Tinie Tempah’s fifth hit (all in the course of 2010), and the eleventh solo credit for Kelly Rowland.

Finally, down at number 37, it’s “X-M@$”, a Christmas single from Corey Taylor, the lead singer of Slipknot.  It’s Scrooge meets Bill Hicks, and it’s actually kind of great.