Cardle's Christmas gets even better

NO.1: Album cover

JUST over a week after winning the X-Factor, Matt Cardle’s Christmas has got even better, after he was officially crowned as the winner of the Christmas No.1 on Sunday night.  Cardle’s winners single, his rendition of Biffy Clyro’s massive hit ‘Many Faces of Horror,’ which he titled ‘When we Collide,’ held off challenges from protest campaigns on Facebook about X-Factor’s domination of the coveted prize.

Other competitors included a hit from Rihanna, one of Cardle’s closest friends with ‘What’s My Name,’ which finished in second place and John Cage’s protest against Simon Cowell, known as ‘Cage against the Machine.’  Their idea was to record a 4min 33sec song of complete silence and was supported by bands such as Madness, The Kooks and Pendulum.  In the end, it didn’t launch a serious threat to the final outcome. 

FORMIDABLE: Matt with his mentor, Dannii Minogue

17.2million viewers watched Matt, 27, the former decorator from Colchester overcome Rebecca Ferguson and One Direction in last Sunday’s final.  Mentored by Australian Dannii Minogue, he was the red-hot favourite to win the ITV talent show for a large proportion of the show, highlighted by the fact that he topped the phone votes on nine of the ten live show weeks.  Cowell will be hoping that Cardle’s success starts a new trend of X-Factor domination of the Christmas charts, which has seen No.1’s for Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis and doomed Scottish singer Leon Jackson.  It was halted last year, by a successful Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 hit ‘Killing in the Name’ to the top of the charts, overhauling last year’s winning single, ‘The Climb’ by Joe McElderrey. 

On hearing the news of his success, Cardle was gobsmacked; "I can't believe it.  As if winning wasn't enough. I honestly didn't think I'd even make it on to the live shows, let alone win and now be the Christmas number one.  "I can't even begin to describe how it feels.”

Congratulations to Matt, a fitting Xmas No.1, I hope he can build on this success for a long-time to come.  

Take That & Florence Dominate the Q Awards

LAST Sunday night saw the annual Q Awards held at London Grosvenor Hotel.  The big news from the ceremony was the first public appearance by Take That since their reunification. 

They kept their appearance as low-key as possible, and even missed the red carpet proceedings, so they didn’t divert all the attention from the other music and celebrity acts that attended.  With Robbie Williams back in the band, they collected the award for the magazine’s Hall of Fame.  With the surge of popularity from yesterday’s technical issues that led to many frustrated fans missing out on tour tickets, Take That’s popularity doesn’t seem to be disappearing.

The other big winner of the night was Florence + the Machine.  She won two awards for ‘Best Female’ and ‘Best Track for ‘You’ve Got the Love.’  Kasabian were named as the best act in the world and there was also wins for Mark Ronson, Madness and The Chemical Brothers.  Paolo Nutini picked up the ‘Best Male’ award, whilst it was a great night too for the promising Plan B, who took the ‘Best Breakthrough’ award.  Plan B also featured in the ‘Best Music Video’ – which was won by Chase & Status for their hit ‘End Credits.’ 

Some of the stars that attended included Ellie Goulding, Radio 1 presenter Fearne Cotton, Charlotte Church, KT Tunstall and Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle.