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Pick at the pops: 24 December 2007
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Our weekly round-up of the weird and wonderful world of pop music...
So this is Christmas, and what have we done? Seriously, what have we done? We’ve only gone and sent the X Factor winner to Christmas No.1 for the third year in succession – this time with a song so flimsy you wouldn’t remember it if it announced that it was your birth mother and you were the heir to a billion-pound fortune. To give them their due, the BBC tried its damnedest to stop Leon Jackson’s inexorable march, attempting the old Frankie Goes To Hollywood gambit of censoring The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s yuletide heartwarmer, but then they spiked its guns with a last-minute volte-face. So Simon Cowell has stolen Christmas again. Paint him green and call Dr Seuss.
Cowell’s still not happy, mind you. He’s threatening legal action against iTunes after its site crashed owing to massive demand for Leon’s limp lettuce, dampening the sales. Is he suggesting the site was rigged? Heaven forbid! Is that Rhydian scowling stage left? Actually, that might just be his normal face.
Some rather more pleasant gifts have been exchanging hands too. The pop stork has surprised everyone by delivering a baby to mouthy minx Lily Allen and her aged boyfriend, Chemical Brother Ed Simons, 46. OK, 37, but still. Lily is reported to be “thrilled” at the prospect. The baby was unavailable for comment.
Then there’s pixel-sized pop princess Kylie Minogue showering pressies on electro-funksters Hot Chip. Well, she’s given them a song, anyway. Says the ‘Chip’s Joe Goddard: “Kylie wrote a song for us. It was totally bizarre. It’s a crazy song. It’s industrial and clanging and even has farmyard animals on it.” Erm, Joe – that’s Kylie singing.
Ho ho ho. As Shaky might say, ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’. Let’s hope it’s a good one.
Matthew Horton
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