Chig66

I'm really looking forward to today's charts, as both singles and albums are quite unpredictable at the top, plus a whole flurry of Christmas songs coming in, with two more weeks still to go. I'm amazed how much Coldplay's performance on Graham Norton increased the sales for Paradise, which has been stuck at the top of iTunes ever since. Where have these people been for the last month? Did they not realise the song was out before?!

The sales of Christmas songs on iTunes have gone mad! Is this earlier than previous years for there to be so many in the iTunes top 200? It just seems way too early for me, but perhaps that's because I haven't taken much notice before. Two days ago (Tuesday at 19:00), there were 38 different seasonal songs, occupying 43 of the top 200 places. As of 14:00 today, there were 49 different songs (11 more), occupying 55 places (12 more). Nearly all of the 43 tracks from Tuesday have gone up (37 of them). One has stayed still, only three have gone down and just two have disappeared. (The Darkness from #198 and Justin Bieber's single version of Mistletoe, from #125, while the album version is the non-mover, at #25.) 29 of the 55 tracks (52.7%) are being taken from Now That's What I Call Xmas. Another 11 tracks (20.0%) are from the Merry Xmas! compilation. Five tracks (9.1%) are Michael Buble's from his Christmas album. That's just three albums accounting for 81.8% of all seasonal songs in the Top 200. I think only four tracks are new this year (apart from Bublé's new versions of old songs) and I'm generously including Slow Moving Millie (Christmas ad and theme) and the new JLS (based on a Christmas song, with a new lyric). So I'm holding a torch for 'Dominick The Italian Christmas Donkey' by Lou Monte, up from #182 to #96. Surely this should be Christmas number one?! :D

Do you mean 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'? Or has she done a medley of that and 'O COME All Ye Faithful'? :unsure:

This is great to see. (The list itself, not my position in it.) Thanks. It has confirmed my role in life as 'distinctly average'. The presence of so much blue at the bottom of the list seems to show that those of us who entered early may live to regret our impatience! We shall see. At least your average figures seemed to vaguely reflect my own guesses. None of them seem wildly out from the pack. Good turnout too. Just out of interest, how many of the 35 are female? It looks very male dominated, from the names that are obvious! Chig

They have a poor credit rating as well? Strewth. Is nothing going right for The X Factor? :lol:

Who is 'they'? The production company? If Gary Barlow writes a new song, he gets the writer's royalties. The X Factor may also give him a fee for writing it. If a Damien Rice song is used, Damien Rice gets the writer's royalties. Same with any other cover version. So, the possible fee is the only thing affecting the production company. They're not affected by the royalties, one way or the other.

That WAS the previously announced deal. Until this week, it seems...

Why not? If they sold roughly the same amount as each other in one day, the gap remains the same. That could easily have happened.

As Steve says, it's the 1st of December. People are opening advent calendars, putting up decorations and starting to think seriously about Christmas, so they must be adding Christmas songs to their playlists too. (Although the effect gets a little bit smaller year by year. I wonder how much of this is due to the waning popularity of Christianity and how much is simply because so many people have the big tracks already. I'm not really sure how much connection there is between religion and Fairytale of New York anyway!)

Every day, there's a chart report somewhere with a basic mistake in it... and so they continue: Yesterday, the OCC said Jason Derulo's single will be a re-entry, even though it hasn't been in the top 40 yet. (It's moved 58-43 so far.) http://www.theofficialcharts.com/chart-new...umber-1-single/ Today, Music Week calls the X Factor's Mariah Carey cover 'Heroes', as if it were the same as last year's Bowie cover, instead of 'Hero': "The 2008 cover of Mariah Carey’s Heroes debuted at one..."

Bugger! I'm well aware of that potential confusion, but I still confused myself. I'm annoyed with myself now. Grrr... :angry:

You and me both. Those two are also my biggest errors so far. They're both 7 places lower already than I thought they would be by Sunday. But I have three albums exactly right (at the moment)!

It was 59-51-52-50-out, according to Chartstats. Slade have a slight disadvantage, compared with the other Christmas classics, because iTunes have the title wrong (as Merry Christmas Everyone), so if lazy people only search for the correct title (Merry Xmas Everyone), they won't find it.

Can we just freeze the competition now? I've got three of the first four albums EXACTLY right, as of today's chart update. I am gobsmacked. :cheer: (They will all slide by Sunday!)

Exactly. I thought the deal was done and Gary was writing, or has written, the winner's song. (Not to be confused with The Winner's Song, which he wrote before. Perhaps he felt he couldn't better it?!)

Oh yeah, of course. Good point. I hadn't sent a private msg on here until I did my entry yesterday, but luckily I did tick that box!

I've seen a TV ad for it already.

It's not really very fair to compare the nation's top male pop act (following a #1 and a #2 single) with a Christmas album in November. (Yes, I know Mickey Bubble's Christmas album has hit #1 already, but it's not normal to buy seasonal albums this early.) Joe's sales should grow over the next four weeks, as more people realise it exists, plus impulse buys in shops.

No need, surely? Your messages should be in your 'Sent Items'. :huh:

I've just sent you my entry, as I'm sure I'll need the 15% discount! I'm already regretting some of my choices... Fun though, so thanks.

Brandon Flowers in a cowboy outfit? [Faints]

I think we're back to the cocked-up Boxing Day chart from last year again here. Rihanna probably tweeted that in good faith, because her sales and Take That's were quoted by the OCC as enormous. They then revised them downwards, knocking those two artists down massively (and taking over a million sales off albums overall for the week).

Thank you. I shall make a note, for pub quiz purposes. :-)

Another error here, surely? That group/act isn't The Waves (although Katrina has been solo for so long, you could hardly blame them(!)) They are the strangely named The WAV.s (sic) according to iTunes. However, Radio 1's chart update calls them The Wavs. Who is right?

Really? Blimey, you can understand why they're not bothering then, and this new single is more of a promo for the album anyway. Thanks for that.