[Red Moon]

X Factor Laura in bid for festive top spot

A NORTH East music company aims to turn the tables on the X Factor by making one of its losing finalists the Christmas number one.

Lancashire soul singer Laura White was knocked out of the ITV talent contest two weeks ago after being cited as one of the favourites to win.

Three of the four judges, including Newcastle-born Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole, voted her off the show after she and fellow contestant Ruth Lorenzo received the lowest number of public phone votes.

Laura’s departure prompted a storm of protest with 50,000 fans signing a petition calling for her reinstatement.

Even Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, the singer’s MP, publicly described her as wonderful and talented and suggested she had been very harshly voted off.

Now Newcastle online music company amazingtunes.com, which showcases unsigned singers and bands, is urging Laura White fans to take her to the top of the charts for Christmas.

Paul Campbell, who founded amazingtunes in 2006, said finalists on the X Factor were bound by their contracts not to release a single until the new year. This left the path clear for the single released by the eventual winner, who is guaranteed a deal with SonyBMG and Syco, the company owned by X Factor judge Simon Cowell, to become Christmas number one.

But Laura sent two songs she wrote and performed to amazingtunes in September 2007 before she auditioned for the X Factor.

The songs, Sunshine and For The Love Of It All, are currently numbers one and two in the amazingtunes chart.

Mr Campbell, a former BBC producer who lives near Corbridge, Northumberland, said one of his aims in setting up amazingtunes was to help unsigned acts find an audience.

“Because I’ve had experience of the music industry, both as a TV producer and as a member of the Musicians’ Unions since the age of 13, I have a very low opinion of it,” he said.

“The history of recorded music is littered with stories of artists who have been ripped off by record labels.

“The deal I offer to artists on amazingtunes is fair and non-exclusive. The artist gets 70% of what we receive from any sale of their track and, in the case of Laura, we have said we’ll donate the remaining 30% to a charity of her choice.”

Mr Campbell, founder and managing director of the Amazing Group, based on Grey Street, Newcastle, said his amazingtunes site currently had about 12,000 original tracks by unsigned bands.

“The whole point is that it’s democratic,” he added. “People who visit the site and download music from it decide who becomes top of the chart. Why should I decide what becomes a hit?”

Earlier this month, Mr Campbell complained to broadcasting regulator Ofcom after the petition organised by amazingtunes user Laura Reading.

They both cited a perceived lack of transparency in the voting system (the exact number of votes cast for each contestant is not revealed) and argued that the way contestants were tied into binding contracts “cannot be morally or legally justified”.

An Ofcom spokesman said a thorough assessment of X Factor had been carried out in relation to earlier complaints and the show had been cleared of any breach of the rules.

Source: Journal Live