‘The X Factor’ UK winner Matt Terry’s ‘When Christmas Comes Around’ starts at #3

While the chart success of a winner’s single does not always determine the long-term future of an “X Factor” winner’s future, we do think that it is a reasonably good indicator. Even when you have a single that is less-than-stellar, if people still come out to buy it, it means that you’ve got a good chance for a long-term career moving forward.

When it comes to new “X Factor” champ Matt Terry, it was certainly important for him to see some success almost right away for “When Christmas Comes Around.” Not only is he right not more relevant that potentially he will ever be, but if he doesn’t sell with this now, it’s going to be hard for him to have success with a Christmas song in January while out on the tour. That’s going to be one of his big challenges, given that the past few singles have not been altogether seasonal in nature.

As of this writing, “When Christmas Comes” around is sitting at #3 for the first week of chart sales, which encompassed five days after the live “X Factor” finale. He’s behind Clean Bandit and Louis Tomlinson, and ironically both of them were also involved in the two-day finale in their own right. While many other winners have scored #1 following their time on the show, there were slightly different chart rules for many years; moreover, this is a better performance than the #9 that Louisa Johnson had with her ill-decided “Forever Young” cover last year.

We’ll track how Matt fares in the Christmas #1 race over the coming days, but in between Tomlinson and an upcoming tribute single to Jo Cox with the money going to charity (much like it is with Matt’s song), we have a hard time necessarily seeing it get to the zenith. If he stays at around #3, this should be considered victory enough given how this in particular is a competitive year in music.

Want to see how we placed Matt within our “X Factor” winner rankings? Then be sure to head over to the link here right now! (Photo: ITV.)