15 December 2011
First thing I checked: was there an anti-X Factor counter-movement behind the original ‘Cannonball’ at Christmas 2011? If there was, it didn’t get far. Damien Rice’s version re-entered the Irish charts at a mere no. 19 before gravity and nominative determinism took hold. (It had already entered the Irish and UK charts organically, as it were, a few months earlier after it was performed by a different contestant during the live X Factor shows.)
I have no strong feelings on the original act. I see, however, that Damo made sure to let the world know he wasn’t diving Scrooge McDuck-like into a vault of chart-topping lucre, telling the press that “straight away I donated a bunch of money to Haiti to cleanse myself of any possible X Factor money that could come in”. Fair enough. I’ll note that making such a public statement is of a piece with the whole ’00s trend of performative authenticity on which Damien Rice capitalised by being a sensitive-shusher singer-songer in the right place at the right time. Haters among you may be thinking how “a bunch of money” is an indeterminate and oddly-phrased sum, and how you don’t recall his views or actions on the money accruing from that earlier 2011 X Factor-fuelled chart resurgence for his own version.
It’s been almost ten years since Damien Rice last released an album. In that time, though, his coverers here went on to become UK pop’s most successful girl group of the last decade. With footballer marriages, a member departure and the ominous ‘hiatus’, Little Mix have certainly followed the classic girl group career arc. While never quite blessed with the popular affection or Xenomania songbook of predecessors Girls Aloud, they’ve had a few decent tunes along the way. This version of ‘Cannonball’, though, is not one of them. In fairness to the group, what more could they do with the song’s mawkish, overwrought lyrics—“stones taught me to fly” and the like—and corny melody? Perhaps they had meant to cover The Breeders’ song of the same name. Anyway, it’s Damo’s ballad that gets The X Factor winner’s single filter of soul-straining vocals, swelling strings, dramatic pull-up-short and then the big climactic key change that syncs with them being called out as winners on the video. Everyone involved seems happy to have got shot of it; let’s all do likewise.
