The battle is on for this year's Christmas number one. David Martin separates the crackers from the turkeys.

IT'S all Slade's fault, of course. All those years (no, centuries surely) of exposure to Noddy and the boys has made us inextricably link Christmas with Seventies rock and vast hair.

Hence, the ease with which rock revivalists The Darkness have become likely challengers for the Christmas number one slot.

Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) boasts falsetto vocals and guitar solos so over the top that even Queen would probably suggest they tone it down a bit.

Throw in a kids' choir, bells and a bassist with the best moustache since Saddam Hussein, and I defy the most churlish of critics not to grin like a buffoon.

But the ultimate test of a Christmas record is whether it joins the (un)holy canon of songs which crop up on Christmas compilation records year after year and drive shop assistants mad on an annual basis, and this song will do that.

Which is why, though the Pop Idol version of John and Yoko's Merry Xmas (War Is Over) may well win this year's chart battle, it will have the life expectancy of your average turkey once Christmas Day is past, as not only is it a predictably bland version, but Simon Cowell has probably torpedoed it himself by releasing a Pop Idol album with it on.

This year's unlikeliest challenger is the dark Mad World. Despite having about as much to do with Christmas as sunstroke, having been recorded months ago for cult film Donnie Darko, singer Gary Jules and composer Michael Andrews' reworking of the Tears For Fears song as a haunting ballad that sounds like the kind of thing Michael Stipe or Neil Young might come up with having just seen the girl of their dreams snogging someone dreadful under the mistletoe.

It's in with a chance, because TV producers must be buying it by the bucketload to soundtrack their end-of-year news clip montages of the Iraq war.

There was a time when Christmas number one had Sir Cliff Richard's name stamped on it. However, though Santa's List may give his fanclub their annual outing to the record store, his Midas touch has deserted him, and its number five position doesn't look good at this stage in the race.

The Anti-Cliff, Ozzy Osbourne, along with daughter Kelly, is of course the current incumbent of the number one spot with Changes.

The sad circumstances of Ozzy's recent accident, being hospitalised at the time of his first number one in a 30-year career, make you realise there's a genuine popular affection for the Osbourne clan - could they hold on to number one?

There's also a strong groundswell of support for the boisterous Proper Crimbo! from TV's Bo Selecta, but it's a track laden with gags and catchphrases that limit its appeal beyond fans of the show.

Erin Rocha's Can't Do Right For Doing Wrong, and Bill Nighy's version of Love Is All Around from Love Actually - in his role as fading rock star Billy Mack with Christmas Is All Around - are other contenders for high placings in the festive chart.

And we won't even mention Basil Brush.

Updated: 15:11 Thursday, December 18, 2003