It’s the Christmas chart! \u00a0No, really, it is – because the UK defines the Christmas number one as whatever record is number 1 on Christmas Day. \u00a0This 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. \u00a0All 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.<\/p>\n
Last year, a surge of anti-X Factor<\/em> 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”<\/a>. \u00a0Strangely enough, capitalism has not fallen in the intervening year, and Simon Cowell continues to do quite nicely, thank you. \u00a0Once again, no major act is prepared to go head to head with the X Factor<\/em> winners’ single, and the result is a strange chart, in which virtually every new entry is either connected with X Factor <\/em>or a reaction against X Factor<\/em>, and music as we know it is more or less suspended. \u00a0There’s one unrelated Christmas single further down the chart – and one lone new entry for an actual regular single. \u00a0It’s a strange time.<\/p>\n Anyway, the 2010 Christmas number one is (inevitably) the X Factor<\/em> winner’s single, “When We Collide” by Matt Cardle<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0Matt 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. \u00a0Now that the voting figures have been released<\/a>, we know that he won every vote except for week one (when he came second). \u00a0He’s also been suffering from flu or something over the last few weeks, so this record doesn’t exactly catch him at his best. \u00a0But regardless, your Christmas Number One:
\n