{"id":1189,"date":"2011-12-19T18:52:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T18:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2011-12-19T18:52:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T18:52:24","slug":"charts-18-december-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Charts – 18 December 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

And lo, there was an entirely predictable number one single. \u00a0The 2011 series of X Factor<\/em> is over, and the triumphant winners are Little Mix<\/strong>, who receive the dubious reward of recording a cover version of “Cannonball”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As I write this, they haven’t released the official video – though it’s a fairly safe bet that it will be a mixture of audition footage, the band standing in a studio in front of a back-projected screen of moving landscapes, and a pause just before the rousing key change to insert their victory announcement.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here they are on the final.<\/p>\n

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It is, of course, not very good. \u00a0But X Factor <\/em>winner singles never are, and generally bear no resemblance to anything subsequently released by the artist. \u00a0I suspect Little Mix will actually end up making records that sound a bit like the Saturdays.<\/p>\n

Little Mix are the first group to win X Factor. \u00a0<\/em>JLS came very close and have had a better career than most of the winners. \u00a0But until now, girl groups have made no impact on the show at all, routinely getting booted out by the (mostly female) voters in the first two weeks. \u00a0Little Mix have the additional disadvantage of being one of the groups assembled from offcuts in the audition stages; of those, only One Direction have got anywhere.<\/p>\n

The problem with the X Factor<\/em>\u00a0format is that, while allowing groups to enter sounds very nice, it’s proved to be much harder to fill that category with viable contenders, leaving it as a sort of dead zone to pad out the early rounds. \u00a0And in a format that favours acts with a “story”, it’s harder for randomly assembled groups to make an impact. \u00a0Ironically, that may have worked in Little Mix’s favour, since their trend-bucking performance then became<\/em>\u00a0their arc. \u00a0Still, you have to wonder whether the producers have now started deliberately rejecting viable candidates simply so that they can be used to fill out the group category.<\/p>\n

Little Mix are Jessy Nelson, Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock. \u00a0They were originally called Rhythmix, but the charity of the same name weren’t best pleased by that (particularly when Simon Cowell tried to trademark the name), and after they wisely took their objections to the newspapers, Cowell backed down. \u00a0The group were hastily renamed Little Mix, and it’ll be interesting to see whether somebody now takes the opportunity to pause, reflect, and come up with something better.<\/p>\n

I think it’s supposed to be a pun on “Little Miss”. \u00a0It’s hard to tell.<\/p>\n

As I’ve noted before, viewing figures are down this year, and there’s a general consensus that this has not been a classic year for contestants. \u00a0Of last year’s crop, four acts have gone on to some degree of success: Matt Cardle, Rebecca Ferguson, One Direction, and Cher Lloyd. \u00a0It’s hard to imagine that being repeated with this year’s bunch.<\/p>\n

It’s also true that this is the lowest-selling winner’s single since Steve Brookstein back in season 1 – though 210,000 still makes it a big seller by normal standards. \u00a0In fact, Matt Cardle’s single last year sold more than twice as much. \u00a0Then again, Little Mix are also the first winner\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to release their single in the week of the Christmas chart itself, and it’s always possible that’s having an impact too.<\/p>\n

At any rate, given the right material, Little Mix are probably a workable act in the real world, bearing in mind that their only real competition is the Saturdays. \u00a0What really matters for the winner’s future career is how many regular record buyers are behind them, not how popular they are with the X Factor<\/em>\u00a0viewers who buy one single a year. \u00a0After all, the highest ever first week sales for an X Factor<\/em>\u00a0winner were achieved by Shayne Ward. \u00a0It’s not like there’s a clear correlation with later success.<\/p>\n

Damien Rice’s original version of “Cannonball” reached number 32 on its first release in 2003, number 19 on re-issue the next year, and number 9 in September after it was used in the X Factor <\/em>audition shows. \u00a0As is now traditional, it re-enters this week at\u00a0number 19.<\/p>\n

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I like to imagine that somewhere out there, in an alternate universe, there’s been a terrible clerical error, and Little Mix ended up covering the Breeders song<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n

Oh, and because Little Mix reprised their version on the final, “Don’t Let Go” by En Vogue also re-enters at\u00a0number 27.<\/p>\n

You might assume that nobody major act in their right mind would release a single to compete with the X Factor<\/em>\u00a0winner. \u00a0Strangely, you’d be wrong – one act has done so, and even more bizarrely, she’s also signed to Simon Cowell. \u00a0Then again, the release schedule is hardly the oddest thing about this record.<\/p>\n

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Yes, Leona Lewis<\/strong>\u00a0really has re-tooled “Hurt”<\/strong>\u00a0for primetime ITV. \u00a0And it’s at number 8,\u00a0after she performed it on the X Factor<\/em>\u00a0finals. \u00a0(It was number 3 in the midweeks, so sales really must have tailed off.) \u00a0Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be a video for it, even though it is her current single.<\/p>\n

The original version is by Nine Inch Nails<\/a>, from their 1994 album “The Downward Spiral”, and while it was always one of their more sensitive and tuneful numbers, it’s still some way from Simon Cowell’s usual source material. \u00a0It reached a somewhat broader audience (such as the people who choose Leona Lewis singles) in 2002 when Johnny Cash recorded it – though these things are relative, as it peaked at number 39. \u00a0It’s an inspired choice of cover, since the lyrics are perfectly suited to the epitaph of a dying star. \u00a0The\u00a0video, filmed when Cash was 71 years old and in the last year of his life, is rightly regarded as a classic.<\/p>\n

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It’s difficult to imagine why anyone would go near the song again after that. \u00a0But then, if Simon Cowell figures his core audience probably haven’t seen either of the earlier versions, he might well be right.<\/p>\n

From the sublime to the… not so sublime. \u00a0Rizzle Kicks<\/strong>\u00a0are gearing up to release “Mama Do The Hump”<\/strong>\u00a0as a single after Christmas, and since it’s already available as an album track, people have stared buying it. \u00a0It enters at number 18 – which suggests it’s really picking up steam, since the midweeks had it at 39.\u00a0 The record’s actually quite good, but the video is… well, it helps if you know those are apparently their real mothers, but I still think the idea isn’t strong enough to carry the whole song. \u00a0And then there’s the canary-in-mineshaft moment at 3:05…<\/p>\n

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And lo, there was an entirely predictable number one single. \u00a0The 2011 series of X Factor is over, and the triumphant winners are Little Mix, who receive the dubious reward of recording a cover version of “Cannonball”. As I write this, they haven’t released the official video – though it’s a fairly safe bet that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}