007 Chart Commentary - 25th Dec 2011

Military Wives feat Gary Malone - Wherever You Are is 2011's Christmas #1

For the first time in 7 years, we have a Christmas #1 which has not resulted from an X Factor winner or a campaign designed to overthrow the X Factor. As a spin off of the TV series The Choir, Military Wives Choir was formed by the wives of service men as a means of raising money for Royal British Legion and SSAFA Forces Help. Following a campaign to get it to Christmas #1, the track has sold in excess of 500,000 copies to make it this year's festive #1 by a long way.

Lou Monte - Dominick The Donkey enters at #3

The battle for xmas #2 was actually quite hotly contested this year with several campaigns bringing some unlikely songs into the charts, as this new entry at #3 demonstrates. This resulted from a campaign by Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles to get the track to Christmas #1, following its use in relation to news reader Dominic Byrne. The track was originally recorded in 1960 by Italian American singer Lou Monte but never a hit in any form, mainly due to its novelty factor.

Alex Day - Forever Yours enters at #4

The new entry at #4 belongs to another unlikely #1 contender, unsigned singer Alex Day with his track Forever Yours. Alex Day was initially known as the founder of Chamelion Circuit, who made music based on the TV series Doctor Who. He then went on to be a member of the band formed by reality show Chartjackers, aiming to write, record and release a pop song in ten weeks - result being 2009 #36 hit I've Got Nothing. Now he has a #4 hit in his own right as Forever Yours hits #4, with proceeds going to World Vision.

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit reenters at #11

As a result of another Facebook campaign to beat the X Factor to xmas #1, US grunge rock group Nirvana make a reappearence with their classic track Smells Like Teen Spirit at #11. With much the same idea as the 2009 campaign for Rage Against The Machine, this was designed to overthrow Simon Cowell and the X Factor winners to go to #1 for xmas. There were significantly less followers for this year's campaign and hence the track's #11 entry, not even managing to beat it's original 1991 peak of #7.

Stacey Solomon - Driving Home For Christmas enters at #27 and Cast of TOWIE enter at #33 with Last Christmas

There are another 2 new entries which are covers of Christmas classics in the top 40 in their original form, at #27 and #33 respectively. X Factor contestant Stacey Solomon has so far has various TV presenting roles but not released any music. Now comes her cover of Chris Rea's 1988 hit Driving Home For Christmas, only having charted in its original form in 2007 at #33, and back at #36 this year. Cast of TV series The Only Way Is Essex enter at #33 with their cover of Wham's classic Last Christmas, with the original dropping to #34. This makes a total of 10 festive hits in this week's top 40, none of which are likely to be in the top 100 next week.

Michael Buble has this year's Christmas #1 album

No surprises at all that Michael Buble's Christmas album remains at #1 in this week's album chart, now having sold enough to rank as the 2nd best seller of the year (in between both Adele albums). With no proper new releases, there is little change in the entire album chart this week with the top 10 and top 20 remaining the same but very slightly reshuffled.

Personal opinion

I am happy to see the Military Wives get this year's xmas #1, much as I'm not normally a fan of this style of music, I really like Wherever You Are. At leats that X Factor tripe or that Dominick The Donkey tripe didn't get there ... I cannot stand Chris Moyles or that song at all. However I do rather like Alex Day's Forever Yours and am very surprised to see it mount a challenge for #1, even if it will plummet next week. I hate Nirvana in general and think that these campaigns are ridicilous to say the least, why get a song to #1 through mass buying ... just to stop another mass marketed thing called X Factor? I don't mind Stacey Solomon's version of Chris Rea's classic, I do love the original though. The Only Way Is Essex TV programme is complete rubbish and so is their version of Wham's great classic.

With next week likely to see lots of old songs come back and few new ones, there will be no 007 commentary next week. Wishing all BJers a happy new year for 2012!