Heroes isn’t horrible, but I’d certainly have near the bottom too.

At least we have a #1 that features Rebecca Ferguson.

I suppose at least with “Heroes” they were moving away from the grandiose power ballad sound. It might be the least horrific of the 4 Finalists’ #1s from 2008-2011, but they are all dreadful.

“The Club Is Alive” is sort of comical in a way because it’s such an obviously naff concept. But yes that autotune is really quite unpleasant.

I didnt mind The Club Is Alive - I mean it's not a classic, but it did climb as high as 50 in my personal chart so it wasn't too bad at least for the 4 weeks I charted it. Heroes was better than Hero, by virtue of being a better song to start with and at least it gave Bowie a songwriter chart-topper credit. Peaked at 54 and also for 4 weeks, so JLS pip it for me, though. I think I was quite generous all round really 😄

Yes definitely no arguments with those two - certainly would be down in these bottom positions for me too!

33. Joe McElderry - The Climb

1 week at #1 (entered 26^th December 2009): 02-01-02-15-25-38-50-68-81

Kept off #1: none

EOY – outside top 200

To be consistent with the other countdowns, I am taking on the #1 that straddles the years, and whether you count this #1 as being dated week beginning 27^th December or week ending 2^nd January, for these purposes, The Climb was #1 in both years, and so gets a slot in both – though here I’ll focus a bit more on Joe McElderry’s 2010 career alongside The Climb. Part of the reason why is that somehow, 2009’s X Factor big cultural moment chart battle passed me by, and I don’t actually recall it happening at the time, so as I got into music and the charts, I approached it as something that had happened, that was in the past – a little regretful as it was surely a fantastic moment. I don't actually remember what I was doing that year, probably having a far nicer time not thinking about X Factor at least. But my experience with The Climb is pretty firmly in 2010.

Jim covered very well in the 2009 thread the dichotomy between the X-Factor really needing the talented entertainer Olly Murs to win and the fickle voting public instead voting the boy who cleans up nice and sings well into the winning position, as someone who didn't watch X Factor 2009 I'd be a bad choice for that, though I completely agree, that is the problem with talent shows, the voting public, ban both talent shows and the voting public. Also previously covered, the aforementioned chart battle in which Killing In The Name secured Rage Against The Machine a legendary Christmas #1 – oh yeah and Joe McElderry’s winning single The Climb did actually get itself a #1 the week after as the campaign faded. It was the sitting #1 as 2010 and the new decade rang in, for a couple of days at least.

As I was first getting into music and getting confronted with the basic offerings popular music of 2010 had to offer me, I did come across Joe McElderry’s immediate post X-Factor offerings and I quite liked them. ‘Someone Wake Me Up’ had a decent pop sound to it and I got into that, and ‘Ambitions’ was an entirely decent first single, peaked at #6 in October 2010 that I also enjoyed a lot. I even got his first album Wide Awake and played it a lot. I later learned that ‘Ambitions’ was a cover of a song by Norwegian electro-pop band Donkeyboy, that it was far from the only cover on Wide Awake (almost all the best efforts on that album were covers), their version of this song was far better (also a retro Greenfroze entry for those who take part in BJSC), and some of my anti X-Factor feelings started to coalesce. Not just because he’s doing covers, but because they’re all covers of lesser-known songs and it feels like here the singer is being sold as a product somewhat deceptively, without anything really to say but as if these songs are his own - essentially doing the exact problem with all the X Factor winner singles but while he's actually free of the show and starting his new career, at a point when he shouldn't need to. It telegraphs his future career as a crooner, and fair play, but that wasn't what he was at this time.

idk it might be just me but singing 'ambitions are already starting to fade' as your first proper single, it's just too easy to make the jokes. What happened to 'There's always going to be another mountain?'. Or does it just mean nothing, because you mean nothing with your words and stand for nothing? Isn't that right Keir Starmer Joe McElderry?

This isn’t anything against McElderry himself, he’s a victim of circumstance, a good lad with a nice voice but no musically creative voice of his own, at least with X-Factor’s initial attempts to make him a popstar, and that comes through very apparently when you take ‘The Climb’ as representative of his immediate post X-Factor output. Most X Factor winners at least put out original songs to lead off their career as popstars after they’re free of the show’s insistence on vapid covers, but McElderry didn’t, he stuck with the strategy of 'The Climb', with original songs like ‘Someone Wake Me Up’ passed over in favour of covers like ‘Ambitions’.

To return to the #1 that this post is allegedly about, it's not all that interesting and I couldn't have gotten much more out of it than this because of one simple fact, there is no reason for anyone to listen to McElderry’s ‘The Climb’ cover over Miley Cyrus’ original, it adventures into nothing and shows little emotion in comparison to Miley's at least decent emotional performance to the point that you don’t even get a sense of Joe’s experience of winning a talent show with it. Joe just oversings it. Very bland, very unexciting, and an easy drop for me at this early stage.

Wasn’t the song I forgot by the way, I knew this one was part of the deal, but I’m not spending too long on it either.

The Climb, and Joe specifically, were harmless enough. Nothing special and again adding very little to the original

Joe’s The Climb remains crap. Can’t argue with this placing. Good to see the 2010 winner’s single ahead of it too!

A very bland cover, I’m also happy to see it below the 2010 winners single.

'The Climb' is not a song I like no matter who does it.

I love Mileys the climb and still listen regularly. Not heard Joes version for some time now (tbf every song so far is one I’ve not heard for absolutely ages).

The JLS track happens to be one I don’t necessarily dislike because as terrible as it is there’s a genuine campness to it and it’s so of it’s time. I think even the fanbase weren’t major fans of the song and the 1-7 fall from #1 at the time was quite a steep drop from the top spot!

The climb is alright at best so not suprised with such a low ranking

Dull, boring, beige, bland. Oh hi Joe.

32. Helping Haiti – Everybody Hurts

2 weeks at #1 (entered 14^th February): 01-01-09-26-42-77

Kept off #1: Florence/Dizzee Rascal – You Got The Dirtee Love

EOY #11

In January 2010, an exceedingly deadly earthquake hit the poor, impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. The epicentre was in about the worst possible position it could have been throughout the Caribbean, near enough to the densest population centres in Haiti, and the earthquake was massive. To an extent, this earthquake destroyed Haitian society and while the total figure of deaths is not known, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, making it the second deadliest earthquake of the century so far after only the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia.

This utterly tragic natural disaster did raise a lot of reactions internationally, including one of the most watched telethons in history in the United States, Hope For Haiti Now, that raised $61 million from viewers. Countries across the world pledged to send aid, the UK initially sent $10 million and some rescue personnel, although in the end, much of the money pledged got tied up in processes and a fraction made it to the country. To this day, Haiti has never really recovered from this earthquake. It was already poor, politically unstable and saw thousands of deaths every time a hurricane brushed against it due to poor infrastructure, and the earthquake exacerbated the inability of government and civil society to do anything. The president of Haiti was assassinated in 2021, and as of 2026, the office of president has not been properly filled, as gang violence and food shortages continue to plague the country. Haiti is a failed state, and one can only hope that better days are ahead of it, but given the country’s proximity to natural disasters and the ability of those who wish it to disrupt the proper running of society, I am not hopeful.

Anyway, as part of our rescue efforts, Gordon Brown decided to personally phone Simon Cowell, asking him to record a charity single, which he did along with The Sun. And so Mr Cowell’s influence over the bottom end of this countdown continues.

The song was a cover of R.E.M’s ‘Everybody Hurts’, with all royalties waived, everything set up to raise as much money as possible. 26 artists, mostly Simon Cowell-associated properties such as Westlife members, Take That members, Leona Lewis, Rod Stewart etc. gathered together in a recording session to talk about how much they wanted to help, so they all got together and recorded a line or two on this hopeful ballad, before going back to flogging cheap disposable pop tat.

The first problem I have with the Helping Haiti version of ‘Everybody Hurts’ as a song is that the sheer number of artists doing individual lines makes it a very inconsistent and jarring listening experience, for no discernible reason except to get more names attached to the song and perhaps that it worked for Band Aid (original lineup). ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ was an original song and designed with multiple artists in mind. ‘Everybody Hurts’ was not at all, certainly not designed for singers with different voices on every line. Mika, who might be my favourite performer otherwise in the lineup, takes you right out of it as he distinctively sings ‘it’s time to sing along’, but he’s far from the only offender and there are many parts in this where the singer changes when musically and rhythmically, the singer should not be changing.

Also as ever with charity singles, I have to evaluate how appropriate the song they chose is for the cause they’re representing, and this is one where, I get it, I get the choice, R.E.M’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ is meant as a hopeful and simple song to tell people that pain is normal and hope is still here – it’s a simple song and will sell well to make a lot of money. I would never call it a favourite rock ballad even as an original, but I get why they chose it. Just, the implication of rich pop stars singing about how ‘Everybody Hurts’, presumably towards Haiti, the one nation where people are hurting feels a little awkward at best, tone-deaf from the rich to the third world at worst. Again, Do They Know It’s Christmas was a little bit white saviour, but it at least centred the people it was helping in its lyrics, as a charity cover, admittedly one organised on very short notice by the only person in British culture at the time who could get this many names together, this did not.

Overall, it’s an inferior experience to listening to the original and that’s how I’m evaluating this for the purposes of this countdown. I wouldn’t often choose to listen to any version of ‘Everybody Hurts’ but if I were choosing so, would never choose to listen to this version, and as ever with big charity singles like this, part of evaluating them critically is how often people would choose to listen to them over and above any songs that inspired them or that they’re covering. You get that with some charity singles, sure, but not really with ones run by Cowell. His strategy, to throw big names at it and sell on star power, with the laudable strategy of making money over and above a usable product, is as ever with him, anti-culture and in important countdowns like this one, will get you losing out.

I won’t say that the Haitians would have rathered PM Brown hadn’t bothered, as this was the fastest-selling charity single of the 21^st century so far, nearly making it into the top 10 of the year with 621,900 copies sold by year end, and as far as I can tell, it is one of the best performing charity singles ever. It raised £1.3 million, split between a specific charity operation The Sun were running and the more general Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), a collection of UK charities that work in situations like this, more recently they ran aid in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. For the Haiti appeal the DEC raised £107 million overall, so this song specifically was about 1% of the UK’s total charity efforts. A nice gesture, and the charts don’t really matter here, but even so one of the most effective charity singles in history ends up as only a small proportion of total donations. The money as far as I can tell did go to use for efforts of shelter and recovery.

Two years on however, the BBC published a rather pessimistic article about how effective the funds were being used, Although this money probably did provide some relief throughout Haiti, it never fixed the underlying issues and didn’t give enough priority to infrastructure projects to protect these people from disasters long-term. As previously mentioned, the country has only gotten harder to live in since then. Everybody is still hurting in Haiti, very, very much.

It’s funny these rates looking back just how many of those cash in for charity esque covers we were subjected too what made their way to #1! Besides LadBaby in the 2020s what thankfully I think we’re now free of we seem to be free from things like that now from actually making the top spot!

Again though nothing so far feels like a major loss!

The age old debate over the ends justifying the means with charity records. This is an awful cover version of one of my all time favourite songs/band, a song that has massive personal meaning to me and my family.

Thankfully it appears we’ve finally moved on from this, to people, hopefully, donating to charities of their choice directly when they feel able.

I don't mind Joe's record, it's what it is and he's personable but where he may have fit better into the dance-pop mode this pigeon-holed him for the West End really. Olly was the main talent and endearing star of course. I think not winning saved him from this sort of treatment so it all worked out.

Helping Haiti, I support the intention but one-offs only make a substantial difference if like Band Aid there is an ongoing fund that can keep money trickling through for decades to come because the underlying problems take decades to fix while the rest of the world forgets about it all and politicians quietly weasle out of promises made. I never liked the REM original much, so this doesnt work as a record really for me, and leaves little impression. It's not awful though it sounds a bit of a mess.

Nothing much to add that hasn't been said on any of these. All of them are boring, cliched, overblown, music made only for the sake of making money. However good the cause is, these records and their slapped together quickly production are inexcusable, no time or thought was put into the actual craft of the music.

With that said I'd have probably put The Club Is Alive above these most recent trio, however it's a total 1/10 record (saved only by the catchy line @Jessie Where mentioned earlier), so 2010 clearly had a big run of rubbish at the top.

Nothing really to add about “The Climb” or “Everybpdy Hurts” here. A little surprised at several people expressing indifference towards the original which is up with the most moving records of all time for me!

Don't mind the 'Everybody Hurts' cover too much but it's nothing special at the same time.

31. JLS – Love You More

1 week at #1 (entered 21^st November): 01-03-10-14-23-19-23-34-45-57-72-92-71-89-96

Kept off #1: Take That – The Flood

EOY #66

As this countdown struggles to emerge from the noted number of charity/talent blights upon the music industry that made it to the top spot in 2010, some poor moments at the top end do fall by the wayside, and I’m sorry to say to any Jack the Lad Swing fans, the next one is their other #1 this year. This actually was the song I originally forgot, which says something about its memorability. Or more that while scanning the list and adding in all the #1s to my Excel sheet, I missed one low impact #1 near the end that I had forgotten was ever a #1 until writing for the commentary for ‘The Club Is Alive’ and thinking ‘wait, didn’t they have 2 number ones from that album? or was that second one in 2011’? Still, after adding it in, I scanned the songs soon to come and decided that while it was much better than The Club Is Alive or charity singles, it didn’t deserve to fit ahead of any of the upcoming ones, so in here it goes.

I really don’t dislike JLS as much as their position this low suggests - indeed I vaguely enjoyed most of their first album, if very little on there that I ever listened to beyond 2013. If it were the other single from Outta This World, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, that we were talking about, that's decent and had that made it to #1 it’d be perhaps 5-10 places higher. But they chose to release that one third post-album for some reason, and as the strategy goes, that only made it to #8 in the opening weeks of 2011. As an upbeat song, it would have been a better X-Factor performance also, and there’s the problem that keeps Cowell hanging over... every song so far.

A big part of the reason ’Love You More’ got to #1 was a carefully choreographed scheduling of guest live performances, one week before the X-Factor was planning to release ‘Heroes’, both JLS and the song they beat to number one, Take That with their comeback 'The Flood' were guest performers on the live shows. I loved ‘The Flood’ and Take That during the one era Robbie Williams deigned to rejoin the rest of the crew, and that would have made a far better #1, here holding at #2 for the second week in a row. Really insane to consider how much the X-Factor was influencing the charts this year, I was watching it so I specifically remember X-Factor guest performances having a very big impact on the charts but I think just from a quick scan of musical guests and knowledge of hits in other years, I think 2010 was the peak. Nearly every song near the top end of the charts in the final quarter of the year was performed on X-Factor and ‘Love You More’ is just the song where its outperformance in comparison to its otherwise impact beyond the show is most clearly noticeable. In that its success was caused by being on the most watched show in the nation, as opposed to being invited because the song was already popular.

On quality, ‘Love You More’ isn't that bad. It's a song that the word average as a perjorative is very good for, a very standard inessential boyband ballad, 4 or 5 out of 10. It’s a big gap between here and the bottom 5, but there's not much to recommend this one either. There’s mercifully no autotune in contrast to ‘The Club Is Alive’, and that’s a good point, what isn’t a good point in its favour is that often boyband ballads aren’t particularly good, this does no work to break those stereotypes, and that it’s the clearly better of their two 2010 #1s doesn’t save it from falling into tired cliches. JLS are better than this, I know they are better than this, they'd never be a favourite act but these two 2010 #1s are the worst of their singles – this gets a heavy ‘meh’ rating and not a song deserving of the top spot: 'The Flood' clears this so hard.