17 December 2009
Alexandra Burke’s X Factor winner’s-single cover version of ‘Hallelujah’ was the 2008 Christmas number one in the UK and Ireland, fending off Jeff Buckley’s cover version of ‘Hallelujah’ at no. 2 there and no. 8 here. I don’t recall if the Buckley-buyers were an organised opposition movement or just random shoppers. Interestingly, the original ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen only made it to no. 36 in the UK that same Christmas and didn’t chart at all in the Irish top fifty. Maybe the original song as performed by its actual writer just wasn’t authentic enough.
A year later, the original version of ‘The Climb’, which reached no. 11 for Miley Cyrus in Ireland in April 2009, likewise saw only a minor resurgence to no. 24 with Joe McElderry’s X Factor winner’s-single cover version for the 2009 Christmas number one stakes. That’s because the opposition instead coalesced around an unrelated track, Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’, chosen by group-thinking internauts because of its sweary chorus about not doing what you’re told. Released on Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., the music and media arm of Sony, plucky outsider ‘Killing In The Name’ duly claimed the 2009 UK Christmas number one spot. In Ireland it topped our download chart but only reached our festive no. 2 while ‘The Climb’ prevailed.
What was the deal with that Christmas 2009 campaign against The X Factor winner’s single? Well, the ’00s were when rock music collapsed under the weight of its ’90s dominance: in the UK because Britpop became a recursive loop of cosplaying nostalgia, in the US because the lucrative success of grunge had commercialised rebellion and mainstreamed the alternative, and worldwide because a cushy business model based on physical artefacts and live experiences was undercut at a swoop by digital and online music. It was also the decade of a renaissance in chart pop, driven creatively by Cheiron and Xenomania and culturally by the wildfire popularity of the Popstars/X Factor format. So, rock’s ’00s attempt to reassert itself and regain relevancy was to define itself in opposition to pop, with performative authenticity: the ironic or condescending cover version of chart pop hits; the soft-rock pivot to earnest singer-songers like James Blunt and Daniel Powter; Irish folk-trad-rock chart-toppers like ‘The Galway Girl’ and the resurgent cult of ‘Fairytale of New York’; the major-label performative authenticity cash-in ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)’. Earlier in 2009, UK reviewers had given hysterically over-the-top negative reviews—“the worst album in the history of recorded sound” and what have you—to the generally harmless and competent debut album by previous X Factor finalist Eoghan Quigg, with no thought to him being a mere 16-year-old. Even in the niche activity of corporate national stereotypical public alcohol consumption, Ireland in the late ’00s invented two new and lucrative traditions: Arthur’s Day, and The 12 Pubs Of Christmas – priceless performative authenticity, like buying a major-label rock single as a protest against a major-label pop single, just because the rock single says a swear-word. On the other hand, Ireland has a tradition of sweary Christmas number ones going all the way back to ‘Fairytale’ first-time round in 1987, so at least that’s something.
Laughing at the astonishing nonsense of Christmas 2009’s rage against (a different part of) the (same corporate music and entertainment) machine puts me by default in the invidious position of being on Team ‘The Climb’. Were Joe McElderry as patently pop-star material as Girls Aloud or Leona Lewis, or even competently pop-star material as Shayne Ward or Alexandra Burke, I’d be even more bolshie, if that’s possible. However, Joe and his tremulous, mild-mannered voice are a throwback to The X Factor’s own tradition: nice-guy-next-door Pop Idol OGs like Will Young and Gareth Gates. Yes, the protest was against Simon Cowell and Cowellism, but the one catching bullets was Joe. If he doesn’t inspire ride-or-die battle fever in me, neither do I see how he provokes any measure of rage in you – unless, of course, you were just picking on an easy target in the name of group-thinking performative authenticity.
And the song? Well, as you’d guess from its Miley Cyrus provenance and winner’s-single utility, ‘The Climb’ is go-be-inspired US country-pop decked out with Westlife-style arrangements and climactic key change. But then, nobody was here for the song, only for the ancillary dubious pop-cultural discourse. In other words, it was all just for bantz. What a ’00s way to end the decade.
