‘The X Factor’ UK: James Arthur misses out on Christmas #1, still performs well

When it comes to the record sales of James Arthur, the “X Factor” UK champ at the moment has the opportunity to celebrate both some good and bad news.

Let’s start off here with the positive: his cover of “Impossible” by Shontelle continues to be a massive seller on the music charts in Britain, with over 220,000 additional copies of it sold within the past week. When you add that to the 490,000 copies that Arthur sold for his debut track (with the proceeds going to charity), then you have an impressive total of over 700,000 just within span of about half of a month. This is even more impressive when you remember that Britain is just a fraction of the popular of America, and any “X Factor” winner here would be thrilled to post those sort of numbers.

As for the negative, it is really not so bad at all unless you consider James not getting the prestigious “Christmas #1” to be an enormous deal. The Justice Collective, who is really an assembly of some of the biggest stars of British music nationwide, ended up rising to the top spot with a charity song of their own, a cover of The Hollies’ 1969 hit “He Ain’t Happy, He’s My Brother” with 269,000 copies sold. Both tracks are helping this to be a rather fantastic holiday season for British music, as this (as in America) is one of the most-important sales periods of the year.

As wonderful as James’ sales are, he and the record executives at Syco and Sony Music know that the only figures that will really matter for his career long-term are for his debut album. He has the interest right now to suggest that he will have a hit, but he needs to make sure the quality of his material helps to back it up.

Do you think James still has to be thrilled, even with posting a #2 performance today? If you want to see some more “X Factor” UK news about James’ runner-up Jahmene Douglas scoring a record deal, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: ITV