David Smyth looks at a music website's attempt on the Christmas number one and finds yet another new sound from Goldfrapp.

TAKING ON THE X FACTOR

I'm starting to think we should be grateful to the X Factor for effectively ending the race for the Christmas number one spot, that bizarre tradition whereby the nation bins all notion of taste and buys novelty stocking fillers for uninterested eight-year-olds. I speak from bitter experience: Santa once dumped Fog on the Tyne by Gazza and Lindisfarne at the end of my bed on Christmas morning.

Nowadays, we already know that whoever wins X Factor will also win the festive chart race, so we can get on with peeling sprouts.

The only serious contenders for a surprise victory are Sugababes with big ballad Change, Kate Nash with Pumpkin Soup and last year's X Factor winner, Leona Lewis, if her current number one hangs on for a few more weeks.

With no Cliff Richard and no children's cartoon characters issuing records this year, the musicians who are now entering into the Christmas spirit most enthusiastically are little indie bands. Perhaps inspired by the obscure acoustic duo Nizlopi's near triumph over X Factor's Shayne Ward two years ago, a handful of unknowns have decided to compete.

Brooklyn band Asobi Seksu are covering the Ramones' Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight), while dour Scot Malcolm Middleton's We're All Going to Die takes the Christmas spirit and stamps on it with evil glee, so has been given accordingly long odds of 500:1 to triumph come 25 December. A song by Black Box Recorder spin-off the Black Arts will be Christmas Number One whatever happens, because that is its name.

In effect, it's a race for a spot in the Christmas Top 20, and if any of the underdogs are going to make it, it is cutesy Greenwich sextet Lucky Soul, whose breezy Sixties stomp Lips Are Unhappy has just been chosen to launch a "Christmas Chart Attack" by the 20 million users of music website Last.fm.

"X Factor may be fun to watch but it produces some terrible music, and we want to make the Christmas number one about great songs again," said Christian Ward of Last.fm, a network which connects millions of users to fellow fans of similar music.

To this end, Lucky Soul are giving away with their not-that-festive song a cover of Mud's Lonely This Christmas (number one the week bandleader Andrew Laidlaw was born) and selling the two tracks as downloads for just 40p at www.last.fm/group/xmaschartattack.

"Lips Are Unhappy is a great little song, a memorable tune played with a lot of passion, but it only scraped into the indie chart when it was a single last year," Laidlaw tells me. He was disappointed that the extensive critical praise Lucky Soul received last year for their self-released, retro debut album The Great Unwanted didn't translate into more airplay and sales.

"We're under no illusions about conquering the world, " he says, "but we are hoping the spider-web effect of Last.fm will lead to a lot more people hearing our music."

Bookies William Hill estimate they will need to sell more than 500,000 singles to beat the X Factor winner.

"Well, if that happens, I'll be very happy," says Laidlaw. "All we really want come 1 January is to know that loads of people have heard us now, so we can get on with making a fantastic second album." That sounds like a more realistic Christmas wish.

IT'S A FRESH SOUND FOR GOLDFRAPP

Given that boy-girl duo Goldfrapp have already transformed themselves from gloomy trip hoppers to purveyors of super-charged synthpop since their debut album in 2000, it shouldn't be so surprising that they have reinvented their sound once more. Yet the wispy folk of this fourth album, Seventh Tree (Mute), released 25 February, is such a radical departure that only the credits prove it isn't a completely different band.

Singer Alison Goldfrapp's rich croon is familiar but even that has been toned down to a fragile whisper on Clowns. Will Gregory's electronics merely sparkle in the background, leaving space for acoustic guitars on A&E and strings on Little Bird.

The melodies are strong, though the overall quietness leaves them open to accusations that this is dinner-party music - just like the trip hop sound, which they have already escaped.

Their concerts might also be less fun than they were two years ago but having the guts to abandon a winning formula certainly keeps things interesting.

NEW ON THE NET

• Leona Lewis should have expected some old acquaintances to come out of the woodwork after her new album scored the biggest week-one sales in history for a debut. A company called UEG, which worked with Lewis before she won X Factor, claims that her early recordings will be available in download stores from Monday as an album called Best Kept Secret - but not if Simon Cowell has anything to do with it.

• Eccentric singer-songwriter Cat Power will release her second album of radically reworked cover versions, Jukebox, in January. Perversely, she's previewing the new long player by putting out her only new original composition, Song to Bobby, as a download. It's in the iTunes store now.

• One of the most unlikely rock reunions to date was announced last week, when reclusive shoegazers My Bloody Valentine revealed they will play three nights at the Camden Roundhouse next June and release a new album. So it's a great time to get hold of their wondrous 1991 album Loveless if you haven't already. As far as downloads go, it's cheapest at iTunes at £7.99, but sadly classic albums are where the download salesmen fall down - it's much cheaper on CD.