The whole idea of taking back the Christmas number 1 seems stupid to me, yes its great that a proper song is number 1, but number 1s at xmas have been shit for about 15 years now (the bloody Spice Girls won it three years in a row in the 90s and the only decent one of those was “2 become 1″ – classic pop)

I don’t know if you knew as well, but the same couple started a group last year trying to get “Never Gonna Give You Up” to number 1 in place of Alexandra Burke. Amazing the difference that can be made when the media jump in and make a fuss of it.

A lot of people seem to have come to the conclusion that this is all Cowell has some kind of masterplan trying to get to number 1 every year, though I do actually believe that a lot of it is going to also be down to ITV schedulers (the shows on for about 20 weeks and is a big ratings winner).

Even the winning of it doesnt seem quite right to me – Ive seen plenty of examples of people bulk buying the single, the way Amazon used it to push its music download service by offering it free, or as a loss leader (chart rules state it needs to be sold for 40p minimum, but Amazon sold it at 29p paying 40p themselves for the song so it was still chart eligible). You even had nokia pushing their service offering 4 free downloads to people who signed up.

I do feel bad for Joe – he got a lot of bad stuff in the papers about him. One of my favourites was in the Sun where they had pictures of him throwing darts at Rage on a darts board, and quoting him as “”They can’t be serious! I had no idea what it sounded like. It’s dreadful and I hate it. How could anyone enjoy this? Can you imagine the grandmas hearing this over Christmas lunch?”. Yet they put a video of the interview with the story and what he actually said was something along the lines of I’ve not heard the song before, I was never a rocker growing up. Its not really my kind of music and I don’t think it sounds like a Christmas record”.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2778291/X-Factor-star-blasts-rival-Rages-riffage.html

Ive had so many stupid arguments with people about this – one guy had a massive go at Joe for not knowing who Rage were – for gods sake the kid was born the year before Killing In The Name was first released, and only 9 when they split up. Same guy also told me “everyone in the uk knows the song because it was played in the Sopranos finale which everyone in the UK watched”.

I do understand the kind of thing Brooker is saying with people being on a journey and buying the single because of that rather than liking it, but then I think of the amount of rubbish that established acts sometimes release that charts high just because of who they are.

To be honest if I was Cowell next year I would probably release a DVD single, with a song and some videos of the winners journey. Make it so the single is chart illegible. Sell a shit load, and let people have their chart back.

Inevitably that wont happen tho – next christmas about 40 different songs will be campaigned for to be the X Factor beater, splitting support and ending in Cowell taking the crown.

Also I cant wait for about a months time when some generic pop shit is number 1 again.

(sorry if this reply is all garbled but this reply box is small and I cant be bothered editing)