HillsBorough Disaster Tribute Number 1 Christmas Hit

Christmas Number One Chart Single Revealed


The year's Christmas hit is announced after a duel between the Hillsborough charity single and X Factor winner James Arthur.


6:46pm UK, Sunday 23 December 2012

The record was launched on December 17 by a host of stars at HMV Liverpool

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The Hillsborough disaster tribute single has become the 2012 Christmas number one.

The Justice Collective's version of He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother sold more than 269,000 copies, comfortably outselling X Factor winner James Arthur's debut single Impossible by 45,000, according to figures from the Official Charts Company.

Earlier in the week, Arthur had taken to Twitter to urge his follows to make the Hillsborough tribute song this year's festive number one, tweeting: "Platinum single baby! Not a bad start :) thanks to all who bought it now make sure the Hillsborough tune is number 1!! #LOVE"

The Hillsborough track, which features names such as Robbie Williams, Sir Paul McCartney and Spice Girl Mel C, is being sold to help cover the legal costs of the families of the 96 victims of the 1989 stadium disaster.

The Government said last week it would waive VAT on the charity single.

As well as the Justice Collective and James Arthur's singles, several other songs were in the running for this year's Christmas top spot.

Those included Psy's mega-selling international smash Gangnam Style and another Internet hit, the £1 Fish Man by East End market trader Shahid Nazir, which went viral in the summer.

The Pogues and Kirsty McColl's enduring hit Fairytale Of New York was also in with a chance. It has re-entered the Official Christmas Singles Chart Top 20 every year for the past seven years.

Since 2002 the Christmas number one has been dominated by reality TV contests which end just in time for the winner to release a single.

The trend began with Popstars: The Rivals but since 2005 winners of The X Factor have topped the Christmas chart five times.

The pattern was broken in 2009 when an Internet campaign saw Rage Against The Machine's single Killing In The Name outselling Joe McElderry.

X Factor winner Matt Cardle was top in 2010 and in 2011 The Choir winners Military Wives were number one.

A link to the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TC8SF4FrtM

Not Born Yesterday wrote:A link to the song.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TC8SF4FrtM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TC8SF4FrtM[/quote[/url]]

Thanks NBY, a good recording but I must confess I only recognised Mel, Robbie, Paul , shows how out of touch i am with the PoP scene.

I was thinking the same thing, Panda!

I used to watch Top of the Pops regularly (yes I'm a sad person) but since that ended in 2006 I couldn't tell you anything about the current pop scene.