The Battle For Christmas Number One

Yahoo! Music's resident chart expert, James Masterton, takes a close look at the 2007 Christmas race for number one.

Like a seven-year-old child unwrapping a box of sweets, the record industry absolutely loves Christmas. Like many other things in the world of entertainment, sales of recorded music sell to a closely defined group of people at a more or less constant level the whole year round until Christmas arrives. At that point it is as if everyone else suddenly becomes aware of the purple coloured store in the middle of the high street and record shops are invaded by people who would never dream of setting foot inside one at any other time. Labels accept this as an immovable fact of their market, and budget to do most of their annual business during the last three months of the year.

For this simple reason the Christmas sales chart is the most important one of the year. Whatever record, be it single or album, is Number One at Christmas it will almost always do so with the biggest individual sale of the year. It is the ultimate showcase of near universal popularity, and historically has often been the exclamation point on whatever musical trend or style has dominated over the preceding twelve months. Even the betting industry found itself caught up in the hype, and Christmas is the one and only time you can guarantee that bookmakers will be willing to run a book on the state of the singles chart.

At least this was the situation until recently. Over the last few years, the race to the top of the Christmas charts has been reduced to a mere irrelevance by TV talent shows such as Pop Idol, Popstars and the X Factor which have deliberately timed their climaxes to coincide with the festive period. With the winner of the show all but guaranteed a Number One single, what better way to sugar coat the prize with the prospect of going down in history by doing so at Christmas.

This is of course utter madness. Early versions of the TV talent shows proved that they had the ability to drive people to record stores in their thousands no matter what time of the year. Indeed both Hear'Say and Will Young were launched into the world in March, giving sales a welcome boost at what is traditionally a rather fallow time of year. Instead of being presented with product which has been promoted, developed and invested in all year, the buyers who cram themselves into record stores during the last week of December are being conditioned to ignore virtually everything else and instead snap up a rush released single from what is often a sub-par karaoke singer just because they voted for them on TV. Inevitably this is followed by 11 months of navel-gazing as record companies wonder why they are pitching their real acts to ever-dwindling numbers of buyers.

Never mind, Simon Cowell clearly knows better than anyone how to make money and who are we to argue with him. Following last Saturday's final we now know that the Christmas Number One single will be 'When You Believe', as performed by Scotsman Leon Jackson. He may not have been the best singer of the finalists (far from it in fact) but he cried at the end, performed with Kylie in her pants and in truth was the only one whose vocal style actually fitted the old Whitney Houston song that had been chosen as the winner. Leaving him aside though, what are the other contenders for what we now have to regard as the secondary prize of Christmas Number 2?

Firm favourites now have to be Katie Melua and Eva Cassidy. Despite only being available through Tesco, the single shot to Number One this week and is thus in pole position to be outselling all "normal" singles come next weekend. Some cynical voices still wonder whether its restricted points of sale will count against it given that the competition is available just about everywhere, but the same impulse buy factor that helped it to the top this week will surely make all the difference again, particularly as supermarkets become busier than ever with people stocking up on Christmas week provisions.

Leona Lewis could also be in contention. Although 'Bleeding Love' ran out of steam after seven weeks at the top of the charts, her links with the X Factor mean she could well be a complimentary purchase for many of the people charging out to buy the Leon Jackson single. At the very least she is of course all but guaranteed to have the Number One album for Christmas, 'Spirit' looking all but immovable at the top of the long player listings.

On a more credible tip, 'Crank That (Soulja Boy)' is, as was widely expected, up there among the bestsellers and after six weeks as a download single finally motored into the Top 3 once the CD single became available. Some smart money went on him at the start of the month but I can't help but feel Soulja Boy Tell'em has peaked one week too early. Also hanging around the Top 10 are more established hits from Girls Aloud, Timbaland and Take That. The prospect of any of these experiencing a surge in sales always remains a possibility, but in reality all are maybe a bit too long in the tooth to be scaling the heights once more, particularly the Take That single which has already had an extended run at Number 2. Funny to think that at one stage people were expecting the Spice Girls to be in contention as well. One week before Christmas and comeback single 'Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)' has dropped out of the Top 75 altogether.

Don't discount the Christmas classics which have invaded the singles chart en-masse over the last few weeks thanks to the new-found chart eligibility of their digital sales. Leading the charge and in the Top 10 already are two singles which have already been Christmas Number 2 - 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' from Mariah Carey (the 1994 vintage) and 'Fairytale Of New York' from the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl (originally released in 1987). Mariah Carey in particular is at Number 4 and to assume she will climb no higher would be very foolish indeed.

Finally there are the handful of bold singles which have left it to the very last minute to hit the stores. An online grassroots campaign is in full force to promote the purchase of 'We're All Going To Die' from Malcolm Middleton in an attempt to cut through the cheese so to speak and install a brooding, depressing and downright pessimistic record near the top of the charts at the happiest time of the year. History has proved that such trendy campaigns never quite have the groundswell of support they imagine they do and to call the Middleton record a long shot is to put it rather mildly, especially given the single is only released physically in a limited edition 7-inch vinyl form.

Another release hotly tipped by many (including me) is 'Change' from the Sugababes but whereas the Soulja Boy single has marched up the rankings as a download, the single from the harmonising trio has stuttered rather and has stalled at Number 26. Nonetheless their sizeable fanbase will still be keen to collect the physical single when it hits the stores. Our only clue as to how well it will do comes from the last time they released a single in Christmas week, in 2005 'Too Lost In You' entered at Number 10 on the Christmas chart.

So take X Factor out of the equation and we do actually have a very interesting race on our hands. I don't like to make predictions, given that the result is either to have people saying "well that was obvious, any idiot could have told you that" or to wind up looking incredibly stupid in retrospect. Nonetheless at the start of December I did place a cheeky tenner on Mariah Carey to be Number 2 this coming week and it is enough to ensure I'll be glued to the radio come Sunday 23rd.