Matt Terry – When Christmas Comes Around

“Hmm, bit damp.”

Tim: Halfway through December, we’ve finally got a new Christmas track worth looking at! Matt won X Factor at the weekend, and became the first winner since Shane Ward back in 2005 to have an original single to release, in this case written by, and sounding like it was written by, Ed Sheeran.

Tom: That was so promising until those last two words.

Tim: So I caught up on the final, and my first thought when he started singing was “hmm, bit damp”.

Tom: You’re not wrong.

Tim: The drop into the chorus, for a start, is nowhere near what I wanted – so I picked my iPad up and started scrolling through Twitter and the like, and a minute or so later I realised that actually, I quite liked it.

Tom: It’s got that typical Ed Sheeran cadence in it that I’ve just taken against: lots of quickfire rhymes with a really simple rhythm all within one line. Lin-Manuel Miranda can pull that off. Ed Sheeran… well, it doesn’t seem to work quite so well.

Tim: It’s no big Christmas banger, obviously, but it’s not designed to be – it’s a have on in the background when you’re chatting around the table after a Christmas meal type song. And for that, I actually really like it.

Tom: I’m just not sold. 2000 Miles fits that description. Stay Another Day fits that description. This is neither of those songs. Actually, those are both songs written for people who’d died, so maybe that’s what this song is missing: death.

Tim: You know, I’m really not sure about that being a Christmas message I want in general. Instead, I’ll good with my view: nice work, everyone.