Someone has fed a load of data into an AI algorithm, asking what's going to be this year's best-selling song at Christmas. Firstly, haven't they got anything better to do? And secondly, what the heck is the answer?
Non-UK readers might not know nor care about 'the Christmas number one', but here in Blighty we are obsessed with it. Our lives are basically ruled by whatever the best-selling piece of music is at Christmas time. Over the years we've had some absolute Christmas crackers, with the 1970s being the best ever period for Christmas number ones. Like this one…
And this one…
The golden era of the Christmas number one continued well into the 1980s, with top tunes like this.
And the best Christmas number one song ever…
But then, to be honest, Christmas number ones were ruined, first dominated by The Spice Girls in the 1990s, then UK TV show X Factor in the 2000s, and more recently by the comedy 'can't really complain about them as they're doing it for charity' band Ladbaby.
Things have got to change. We either need to go back to the 1970s for our Christmas number ones (but, frankly, not for anything else from the 1970s) or we need to look forward to the future and let AI choose our Christmas number ones.
And if you are futuristically inclined, the good news is that AI has already chosen this year's number one and it's bang on the money… if the recording of said song ever takes place, that is. AI has chosen - drum roll - a version of this…
Sung by this fella…
Yes, according to BonusFinder – a website 'dedicated to helping players find the biggest bonuses offered by some of the best online casinos', and one with clearly way too much time on its hands – this year's Christmas number one will be Lewis Capaldi singing a cover of John Lennon's Imagine.
The AI prediction was based on what song could potentially be used for the next John Lewis Christmas advert – always a good barometer for Christmas song sales – and Capaldi singing Lennon was the most likely outcome.
"Our journey began with a simple, yet bold, vision: can AI predict the most anticipated advert of all time?" BonusFinder says. And after feeding the AI a history of the Christmas number ones and John Lewis ads, it came up with the answer: a soulful rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine sung by Lewis Capaldi.
The AI even came up with a story for a potential video and some still images for it, so if anyone from John Lewis is reading this, your job is already done. Just get Lewis on the phone and you're sorted (Capaldi that is, not John).
You can read more about BonusFinder's predictions here, although we have to ask why a site about online gambling isn't trying to channel its predictive capabilities elsewhere. Like finding out the next Lottery results, for example.
