The BBC could hold a Eurovision-style contest to decide the next unlikely Christmas No 1
There's a problem with social media. You can only use it to do a good thing once, and then everybody's at it, cheapening the original idea. A case in point is the plethora of online "let's get a really incongruous song to Christmas No 1 instead of that horrid X Factor stuff" campaigns, which seemed to be springing up hourly over the last few weeks. When everyone got behind Rage Against The Machine last year, it was an entirely pleasant bit of absurdist fun, sticking two fingers up at Simon Cowell's dreary pop-marionette monopoly.
This year, of course, everyone has had a crack at it and, by the time you read this, has almost certainly failed. We all heard of Cage Against The Machine's one-joke "cover version" of 4'33" Of Silence; there was a creditable crusade backing the Trashmen's deranged Surfin' Bird, given fresh popularity by its appearance in an episode of Family Guy; and Shaun Ryder and Stacey Solomon threatened to make a beauty-and-the-beast stab at Fairytale of New York. Other unlikely challengers included Metallica's somewhat unseasonal Enter Sandman, not one but two agreeably ghastly efforts from Electric Six, the brilliantly profane Irish comedy disco-funk of Horse Outside by Rubberbandits and Captain Ska's anti-government Liar Liar.
All these are supported by Facebook campaigns of varying heft, while poor wronged X Factor contestant Gamu Nhengu was able to surf a wave almost entirely consisting of public sympathy. Now we're counting the cuddly Cardle-shaped cost of this surfeit of choices. Who, in an age of austerity, is going to pay a dozen times over to ensure a silly Christmas No 1?
But can we learn from this, and overcome once more? Next year, I'm proposing that the BBC holds a Eurovision-style televised contest to decide which challenger we're all going to get behind. It would give it a worthier opponent to X Factor than clunky, desperate Strictly will ever be, and we, as a nation, could unite behind one common cause.
My suggestions? The 22-minute version of Autobahn by Kraftwerk, perhaps, or the Aphex Twin's Window Licker, possibly the most terrifyingly unfestive piece of music ever. Or how about something from Baltimore-based Hatebeak, a death metal band whose lead singer is a parrot?
The 2010 race is over; let's start whittling the 2011 shortlist now.
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