The Hit Parade

As a pedant, I could argue that the Kick Horns also appear on at least two chart-topping singles that I can think of offhand, but are of course not a credited Number One act.

Sounds like a short party.

The thing is though, there's not much point in any big act releasing a brand-new single in Christmas week. A post-album single would lose too many sales, and anyone big enough to get a surefire Number One at this time of year wouldn't want to release their album after Christmas; these obviously don't apply to the Military Wives or Justice Collective. The closest plausible equivalent against a popular XF release would probably be something like the Spice Girls in 1998, with a new single released a long way ahead of a (presumably unfinished) album. But I don't know how many record companies would really want to risk that.

Actually there was a bit of an internet campaign in 2003 as well but in the pre-social networking days it probably didn't make any difference. And of course the Number One that year did come from a film.

By the way, I was in two branches of Sainsburys on Saturday (envy my crazy glamorous life you suckers!) and I didn't notice any Ben Haenow CDs in either of them. Lots of Peace Collective and Band Aid 30 ones though.

Just checked the Graham Betts book and he didn't know who Kicking Back with Taxman were either. I even looked at YouTube comments in case somebody had said "that's me!" Odd because they obviously weren't trying to be anonymous.

They always represent the Christmas Number One via video, recording two different voice-overs if necessary. I remember seeing the Rage Against The Machine one in 2009.

I hadn't heard of the Wealdstone Raider till last week, even though I live near Wealdstone, but then I don't follow football much. The stadium's moved out of the area now anyway.

Grungers? Iron Maiden aren't grunge, they're NWOBHM.

Or he's deliberately trying to whip up votes with his carefully managed Mr Nasty persona?

Apparently that song was banned by the BBC, so Max Romeo claimed it was about living in a flat with a leaky ceiling above the bed. I don't think they believed him.

Bob Dylan releases Shadows In The Night next year: The date on his Facebook and website is 3rd Feb 2015, presumably that'd be the 2nd in the UK.

He didn't write it either, in fact. But I suppose singer/songwriter is what he usually did, his hit was just a fluke.

That's what I thought too, although I also thought much the same about Katy Perry and I was wrong about her.

FYI, the Paul McCartney track isn't out until tomorrow. At least it's the same release date everywhere I suppose.

I think I might actually prefer the German version (even though I know the language well enough to understand the lyrics).

I've heard it on Radio 2 a fair bit. Surely those can't be the only two places playing it???

I suspect the main reason One Direction wouldn't do a Christmas song (other than their contribution to Band Aid 30) is that they always have a new album to promote in November/December time and a Christmas single would interrupt that. They don't fit well onto studio albums, though 'Fairytale Of New York' is an obvious exception. I presume this is also why Ed Sheeran's Christmas song isn't coming out until next year. But yeah, plenty of people have done new songs in recent years - but even the ones that make some impact at the time tend not to be remembered a year later. I think part of the reason is that familiarity is one of the things people want from Christmas songs.

He's the former chairman of First National Bank, who left when that company was sold to General Electric in 2003. Making records seems a bit of an odd change of direction for him... either that or it's a different person.

Yeah, I remember being disappointed that the Peel show didn't happen. It was cancelled but I'm not sure they ever said why. Jo Whiley's name is definitely spelt as such though. Wiley is a different person.

The first Robson & Jerome album was the biggest seller of 1995! Even though it was released late in the year. Admittedly, Jagged Little Pill and Morning Glory both outsold it in the long run but it was big at the time. And yes, of course Cowell was involved, he did a lot of those sort of TV tie-ins back then.

Why would people stop streaming it just because they couldn't buy it? If it was to have any effect at all it'd be in the other direction.

Isn't the rule about bonus material that it can't be "previously available as a separate product"? As the deluxe album and the EP think have been released simultaneously, I don't see any reason the deluxe wouldn't be combined with the original; but the EP would be separated like the U2 one last week.

To be fair, the original version of 'Cum On Feel The Noize' is pretty iconic. Oasis got to do their version on TotP although I suppose that wasn't until after the first week sale.

It's stretching it less than Sonique! On the other hand, that was the third time 'Runaway' had been released.