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17/12/2004
Band Aid 20 on course to be Christmas Number One
With well over 600,000 sales since its release, the charity single 'Do They Know It's Christmas' by Band Aid 20 looks set to be 2004's Official UK Charts Christmas Number One.
The closest rivals are Ronan Keating's cover of 'Father and Son', featuring Cat Stevens, which is currently in second spot and neck and neck with Kylie Minogue's 'I Believe in You'.
The Band Aid 20 single is currently outselling these two songs by a combined margin of five to one, and is selling as much as the rest of the Top 20 put together.
Do They Know it's Christmas? Is predicted to sell as many as 300,000 copies in the final week leading up to Christmas, which would put it well on course to be the first million selling single since the success of the Pop Idol stars Will Young ('Evergreen' - 1.78m copies, February) and Gareth Gates ('Unchained Melody' - 1.34m copies, March) in 2002.
Do they Know it's Christmas? is now the UK's biggest and fastest selling single of 2004, having overtaken Eamon's 'Don't Want You Back', which has sold a total of 552,407 copies since its release in April.
Gennaro Castaldo of HMV said: "Band Aid 20 is fulfilling our initial expectations that it would be a million-seller, and then some. The only realistic challenge to an extended run of weeks at the top will come from X-Factor's Steve Brookstein, which is out next Monday, but even that is looking unlikely. Whatever people think about this recording of the song, the Band Aid project has been a success."
(GB/SP)
The closest rivals are Ronan Keating's cover of 'Father and Son', featuring Cat Stevens, which is currently in second spot and neck and neck with Kylie Minogue's 'I Believe in You'.
The Band Aid 20 single is currently outselling these two songs by a combined margin of five to one, and is selling as much as the rest of the Top 20 put together.
Do They Know it's Christmas? Is predicted to sell as many as 300,000 copies in the final week leading up to Christmas, which would put it well on course to be the first million selling single since the success of the Pop Idol stars Will Young ('Evergreen' - 1.78m copies, February) and Gareth Gates ('Unchained Melody' - 1.34m copies, March) in 2002.
Do they Know it's Christmas? is now the UK's biggest and fastest selling single of 2004, having overtaken Eamon's 'Don't Want You Back', which has sold a total of 552,407 copies since its release in April.
Gennaro Castaldo of HMV said: "Band Aid 20 is fulfilling our initial expectations that it would be a million-seller, and then some. The only realistic challenge to an extended run of weeks at the top will come from X-Factor's Steve Brookstein, which is out next Monday, but even that is looking unlikely. Whatever people think about this recording of the song, the Band Aid project has been a success."
(GB/SP)
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Christmas Lyric Banned After 20 Years
Radio 1 has relented on a decision to censor a word in a 20-year-old lyric from a widely played Christmas song. In a move that was branded as "pathetic", radio station executives decided to censor the re-release of the song Fairytale of New York by the late Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues star Shane MacGowan.
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Man Jailed For 20 Years For The Murder Of His Son
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Over 20 Hurt In Rail Crossing Crash
Twenty-one people have been injured after a train collided with a sewage tanker at a level crossing in Suffolk on Tuesday. The incident happened around 5:30pm at Little Cornard, near Sudbury, when the lorry was struck by the 17:31 National Express East Anglia Service from Sudbury to Marks Tey.
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