Congratulations then to Joe McElderry, winner of the X Factor 2009. The people’s champion was voted for by over six million viewers and, with the show’s finale timed to allow the victor the spoils of a Christmas number one single, Joe is now the bookies’ favourite to top the festive hit parade as well. Even with the Rage Against The Machine campaign in full swing, competition for the top spot is most likely to come in the shape of Susan Boyle, who must also be congratulated for releasing the fastest selling debut in UK recording history earlier this month.

It’s a funny business, all this competing and counting. The best singer with the best song, as validated by judges and festive chart positions, is not really the business of music, the business of creating and performing.

I suppose we can put it down to nature, our instinct for competition. We see it in sport, in business and in partnering all the time, yet music is surely different. There is no empirical ‘better’ in a form that is free of rules and boundaries. Could Never Mind The Bollocks be a greater debut album than Are You Experienced? Who can tell? I know which I prefer, but wouldn’t claim to have a definitive rating to either. Certainly, a chart position or voting poll would do little to convince me of an authoritative answer. Sometimes only a rasp to Anarchy In The UK will do, on other occasion air guitar to Foxy Lady equally irreplaceable.

Nonetheless, it seems there is an urge within us, a pack animal that seeks comfort in the assurance of its peers. We want to know about each other’s preferences and ratings because the answer helps define us, both individually and collectively (one reason the campaign to stop another X Factor Xmas has gained such momentum). Why should we care what tops the charts at Christmas? Because it says something about us, the state of mind of our society and the tastes of our culture.

On a more individual level, I know that by having the record collection I do, I’m hoping to attract like-minded others who will appreciate what I appear to be. We all use our likes and dislikes to join flocks, to separate ourselves from other flocks, and form an image we can present to others. Along with our clothes, our language and our hairstyle, our musical preference is a feather in our tail, to fan at those we hope to impress.

It is reasoned that a true aficionado will care not a jot for record sales or chart positions. The triviality of whether an album has gone platinum can be a turn-off just as a motive to admire. I know myself that I treasure Freddie Hubbard’s Open Sesame much more than its popularity suggests is worth. Part of that admiration, if I’m honest, is that it somehow belongs to me rather than to the world at large. By holding it up above other, more popular works of the genre, I can reinforce my belief that I will not be swayed by public opinion.

Yet however hard any of us try, the desire to look over our shoulder and sort our music into some semblance of order seems to prevail. Facebook now has nearly a million members voting to make Killing In The Name Of the number one single at Christmas. We make crowns for the biggest band in the world, the best live band on the planet, the king of pop or even just the king; hollow titles all to be placed on the heads of our stars. Whether we are categorising by genre, rating with numbers, or short listing our own desert island disks, it seems we are destined to measure and contrast the unique.

It is in part a language thing. I remember the times I used to go to Bramley Road for A&R meetings, with a new song to hand over to my publisher and the next brief to collect. “Gareth is looking for a cross between Will and Robbie”, they’d tell me. I’d tell them I had a new song that might fit, “what does it sound like?” they’d ask.

I never worked out how to answer the question. If I told them I had written a masterpiece that was as creative as Radiohead and as accomplished as Mozart, would that rule it out as inappropriate? What are the distilled qualities of Will and Robbie that would together make Gareth, and the song they were after?

Words cannot describe music. We cannot depict the playing of Eric Clapton, the tone of Louis Armstrong or the dynamic of Beethoven with any satisfactory result. Adjectives like melodious, accomplished, crafted; none of them can give a hint as to what is on the record, the glory of the thing itself. There aren’t the words that can. That’s sort of the point of it. The enigma is in the emotions language cannot describe.

Perhaps it is because there are not the words, because there are not the boundaries for formal assessment, that the numbers become our only way of ordering what is on offer. How else can we satisfy the basic desire to rate the output of our stars? On what other basis can we anoint those at the top of their profession?

In 1741, Johann Sebastian Bach set upon what he called the “ungrateful task” of composing a set of variations for Count von Keyserlingk’s court musician. In poor health, the Count mentioned he would like some pieces for Johann Goldberg to play that would ease his insomnia and uplift his spirits. The resulting Goldberg Variations, created without competition, one eye on the charts or the need to quantify their style with drab words from their maker, are beyond comparison, rating or paltry description from the listener. Together they form a piece that was made for the sake of music and nothing else. A piece judged not in comparison, or by units shifted, but in quality and emotional resonance.

An artistic life is much different today, often filled as it is with self-doubt and unanswerable questions asked by global audiences and investors. But if there is one thing we can hope from Joe McElderry, or indeed from ourselves as we summarise the decade just gone, perhaps it is that we can do the same as J.S. Bach and his audience, and rise above our competitive desire to arrange the incomparable and order the unparalleled.