X Factor’s Joe McElderry beats Rage Against The Machine for New Years #1

By On 12/28/2009 · 6 Comments · In American Idol, Simon Cowell, X Factor

X Factor winner, Joe McElderry finally got his #1.

via NME.

The X Factor winner Joe McElderry has taken the Number One spot in the UK singles chart for the New Year tonight (December 27).

McElderry comfortably beat last week’s (December 20) chart topper Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’, which had claimed the Christmas Number One spot thanks to a Facebook campaign against Simon Cowell.

His song ‘The Climb’ has since sold 196,000 copies in the last week, beating ‘Killing In The Name’ by over 130,000.

I’m not surprised the momentum dissipated quickly for the “Killing in the Name of   Love” campaign, once it successfully messed with X Factor’s 4 year Christmas #1 winning streak.   The feat was pretty remarkable for a 17 year old song.

While I enjoy “sticking it to the man” as much as anybody, Joe seems like a sweet bloke.   I’m kinda glad he got his #1 eventually.

Joe is now set to compete for the biggest selling single of the year, which will be announced on January 2. 650,000 copies of ‘The Climb’ have been sold so far.

I’m sure Joe’s New Year’s #1 was happy news for X Factor creator and producer, Simon Cowell, currently vacationing in the Caribbean. (Seriously Simon? Put those away!)

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  • Pam

    Nice victory for Joe. :)

    Seriously Simon? Put those away!)

    Please! LOL

  • http://www.twilightslo.com Mateja

    Joe’s single sold more than 600k copies, so it’s platinum now.

  • Kipper

    Do you mean platinum or gold? Gold is 500k, isn’t it?

  • http://www.twilightslo.com Mateja

    No, it’s different in the UK.

    Singles:
    200k = silver
    400k = gold
    600k = platinum

    Albums:
    60k = silver
    100k = gold
    300k = platinum

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_recording_sales_certifications

    Susan Boyle sold on average over 300k albums every week in the UK.

  • karenw

    Do you mean platinum or gold? Gold is 500k, isn’t it?

    It’s different in the UK 100K is gold, 300K is platinum for albums

    for singles it’s 400K gold, 600K platinum

    Edit: … sorry .. someone’s already posted this .. lol

  • Hazehel

    Do you mean platinum or gold? Gold is 500k, isn’t it?

    As mentioned by others, it’s different for different countries to take account of the differences in population and buying habit. Note the difference in UK certification for album and singles – it simply reflects the fact the British people still buy singles in large number. Just to give you an idea – Rage Against The Machine sold 502.6k to reach UK Christmas number 1, since the US has around 5 times the population of UK, that’s the equivalent of selling 3 million singles in the US in a single week.

    Good for Joe to get a number 1, very nice, but unfortunately for him, it doesn’t have the same kudos as getting a Christmas number 1. A New Year #1 is just the same as #1 every other week. Just to explain to those who don’t know, race to the Christmas #1 in the UK is a sort of tradition in the biggest selling week of the year. This is time of the year when you gets lots of novelty songs (e.g. “Mr Blobby”), cheesy songs (e.g. There’s No One Quite Like Grandma”), seasonal ones (e.g. Boney M’s “Mary’s Boy Child”), plus some good ones (e.g. Gary Jules’ “Mad World”).

    I don’t think Joe will get the biggest selling single of the year, that’ll be Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.