{"id":85,"date":"2009-11-23T21:25:06","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T21:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=85"},"modified":"2009-11-23T21:25:06","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T21:25:06","slug":"number-1s-of-2009-22-november-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=85","title":{"rendered":"Number 1s of 2009: 22 November 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I said last week that it was a foregone conclusion, and I was right.\u00a0 “Meet Me Halfway” by the Black Eyed Peas only gets a single week at the top, and it’s replaced by the latest X Factor<\/em>-related hit.\u00a0 If you count the Black Eyed Peas (who climbed to number 1 after appearing on the show), it’s the fifth consecutive number 1 to be connected with the show.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s a charity single by the acts who made the live rounds of the show.\u00a0 And it’s… not desperately good.<\/p>\n

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That’s The X Factor Finalists 2009, “You Are Not Alone.”<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Apparently there’s no hyphen in “X Factor<\/em>” after all.\u00a0 You learn something new every day.<\/p>\n

This is the second X Factor<\/em> charity record, and Simon Cowell’s already said he wants to make it an annual tradition.\u00a0 Last year, the 2008 finalists had three weeks at the top with a cover version of “Hero”<\/a> in aid of war veterans.\u00a0 This year, it’s Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone”, a number 1 hit from 1995, and the charity is the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London.<\/p>\n

It is a good cause.\u00a0 But it is a bad record.\u00a0 It’s a mechanical trudge through a song that was syrupy to begin with.\u00a0 Any iota of individuality is autotuned out, and the backing track might as well have been licenced from a karaoke album.\u00a0 There’s some passing amusement to be had in seeing how desperate they were to marginalise the notoriously tuneless twins John and Edward (their bit begins at 1:33, and ends at 1:38).\u00a0 Yes, they could fix\u00a0their wailing in the studio, and they\u00a0did –\u00a0but there’s suspension of disbelief to worry about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it’s just a dispiritingly boring record.\u00a0 Let’s be honest, even on the most generous view, it’s hardly “Do They Know It’s Christmas.”<\/a><\/p>\n

By the way, although the YouTube page says that the hospital gets \u00a31 from each copy sold, that’s apparently referring to the CD single.\u00a0 Buy it from iTunes and\u00a0the hospital gets 32p; buy the B-side as well (a slightly different mix), and it gets 64p.\u00a0 So if you really want to support the hospital, as well you might, you might want to consider just giving them some money<\/a>.\u00a0 Then again, that’s not really how charity singles work; it’s as much about supporting the cause as anything else.<\/p>\n

Now, last year’s single stayed at the top for three weeks.\u00a0 But\u00a0the first week sales are about a third lower this time (though it still shifted a more than creditable 190,000).\u00a0 Judging from the iTunes chart, it’s not going to hold on for a second week – chances are it’ll be number 3 or even 4.\u00a0 In fact, it’s likely that Sunday will see Simon Cowell’s strangehold broken, and we’ll get something entirely unrelated to\u00a0X Factor<\/em> at the top of the charts.<\/p>\n

The tuneless twins were finally booted off the show on Sunday, bringing their divisive and highly entertaining run to an end.\u00a0 No other act could do “Ice Ice Baby” and have it widely regarded as an improvement.\u00a0 We may never see their like again.\u00a0 For weeks, their manifestly indefensible presence in the show has rubbed salt into the wounds of one defeated contestant after another.\u00a0 And by god, did they go out with a performance to be remembered.\u00a0 Are they victims of a sniggering TV show?\u00a0 Are they some sort of Kaufmanesque gag at the expense of people who take the show too\u00a0seriously?\u00a0 Or are they just two teenage boys who fluked their way past the auditions and made the most of their 15 minutes of fame?\u00a0Decide for yourself.\u00a0 Caution: this really is awful.<\/p>\n

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Not that the idea of John and Edward as pop stars was all that ridiculous.\u00a0 Look at Britney Spears –\u00a0she openly mimes in concert, and her records are drowned in so much autotune and vocal processing that for all we know, she hasn’t hit an unassisted note since 2004.\u00a0 And it doesn’t matter, because what she brings to the records is branding.\u00a0 If nothing else, the twins were certainly a brand.\u00a0 Frankly, nobody else left in the competition seems to have the same tabloid appeal, so Simon Cowell may well be privately bracing himself for another Leon Jackson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other new entries this week are an eclectic bunch:<\/p>\n