The BBC reports on the battle for the Christmas number one, 19 December 2013.

X Factor winner Lucie Jones is the surprise victor in this year’s tussle for the UK Christmas number one.

Jones’s power-ballad version of MIA’s Paper Planes was the lucky beneficiary of a determined media campaign to unseat the early-90s US alt-metal bands who have held dominion over the UK Christmas charts for the past four years.

It marks the end of an ignominious seven days for grunge veterans Soundgarden, whose Jesus Christ Pose seemed certain to make it five festive number ones in a row for over-earnest, minor-chord-bothering Stateside metallers.

Earlier in the week, singer Chris Cornell had launched a scathing attack on Radio 1 for supporting Simon Cowell’s underdog protégée, reserving particular bile for Alexa Chung and her “trendy-schmendy” love for the X Factor. Many believe this is where the tide turned.

Radio 1 Breakfast Show host Chung launched the campaign on 10 December – two days before Jones’s winning turn, and coinciding with Soundgarden’s chart-topper-elect being restocked in the download stores. “This is all about getting good music back on top at Christmas,” Chung declared. “We’ve had to stomach this grungey crap for way too long. Everyone’s grandad rushes out in the middle of December and buys the latest Pearl Jam reissue, leaving the real music-lovers high and dry. It’s high time some cutting-edge MOR recaptured this iconic position.”

It had seemed a hopeless quest for Chung and Cowell. When Rage Against The Machine grabbed the 2009 Christmas number one, the tone was set for alt-metal festive hegemony for the next three years. Alice In Chains’ Angry Chair followed in 2010, with The Screaming Trees taking Shadow Of The Season to the top of the pile a year later. When Tad triumphed over the Pitchfork-backed Susan Boyle last year, it appeared defunct US rockers had an unbreakable hold.

But in the end, the British public prevailed. One young shopper at Oxford Street’s HMV Download Booth this evening gushed, “I’m so pleased Lucie’s number one. I don’t usually buy records the rest of the year, so it really matters that something good is number one for Christmas.”

Meanwhile, media movers and shakers were quick to air their thoughts. NME Editor Krissi Murison expressed her relief at Jones’s triumph. “To be honest, none of us really liked Nirvana in the first place,” she sighed.