With one famous exception, the last non X Factor related Christmas number one was in 2004, so I thought I'd have a look at the chart in 2004 leading up to Christmas 7 years ago:

1 Band Aid 20 Do They Know It's Christmas?
2 Ice Cube featuring Mack 10 & Ms Toi You Can Do It
3 Destiny's Child Lose My Breath
4 Kylie Minogue I Believe In You
5 Girls Aloud I'll Stand By You
6 Green Day Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
7 Lemar If There's Any Justice
8 Natasha Bedingfield Unwritten
9 Gwen Stefani What You Waiting For?
10 Nelly & Christina Aguilera Tilt Ya Head Back
11 Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Drop It Like It's Hot
12 Ronan Keating featuring Yusuf Father And Son
13 Eminem Just Lose It
14 Uniting Nations Out Of Touch
15 Brian McFadden Irish Son
16 Babyshambles Killamangiro
17 Christina Aguilera featuring Missy Elliott Car Wash
18 Jay-Z / Linkin Park Numb / Encore
19 JoJo featuring Bow Wow Baby It's You
20 Robbie Williams Misunderstood
21 Geri Halliwell Ride It
22 U2 Vertigo
23 Eric Prydz Call On Me
24 Usher Confessions Part II / My Boo
25 Merrion McCall & Kensit I Got You Babe / Soda Pop
26 Jamelia DJ / Stop
27 Michael Gray The Weekend
28 McFly Room On The 3rd Floor
29 3rd Wish featuring Baby Bash Obsesion (Si Es Amor)
30 Shania Twain With Mark McGrath Party For Two
31 Blue Curtain Falls
32 Razorlight Rip It Up
33 Joss Stone Right To Be Wrong
34 Khia My Neck My Back (Lick It)
35 Morrissey I Have Forgiven Jesus
36 Deep Dish Flashdance
37 Kelis featuring Andre 3000 Millionaire
38 Britney Spears My Prerogative
39 Nadia A Little Bit Of Action
40 The Streets Could Well Be In

I was hoping to say how great the charts were before the X Factor just to convince myself of "The Good Old Days" before Cowell dominated the charts at this time of year....

However, there's really not much to celebrate about this top 40 is there?

I know it was for a good cause, but the number one single is TERRIBLE and not one I don't think anyone would want to remember fondly.

Kylie, Lemar, Green Day, Destiny's Child and possibly McFly are the best songs on this list. But for someone like me to only like 5 tracks in the entire top 40 is a rarity, even by today's standards!

Am I being to harsh about this particular period of pop music? Let me know what you think!