In which the Christmas number one is quite uneventful, really.

1. Wham! – “Last Christmas”

Here we are again, with a back catalogue track as the Christmas number one, despite the disadvantage of being on permanent downweighting. “Last Christmas” is spending its second week at number 1 this year, its ninth in total. It was number 1 at Christmas 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Last year it was number 1 for four weeks, mind you. That won’t be happening this year. Next week’s chart will probably still be dominated by Christmas music, since Christmas Day is Wednesday and the chart period runs from Friday to Thursday. The week after that, it will all vanish, and George Michael won’t cross our mind against for another 11 months. (Seriously, when was the last time you heard anything else by him?)

You’d be stretching a point to say that there was any sort of contest for the Christmas number one spot this year. There are three non-festive singles heroically clinging on to their spots in the top 10: Gracie Abrams at 2, Rosé & Bruno Mars at 5, and Lola Young at 7 (who’s actually been climbing strongly against the tide). The highest placed new Christmas song is Tom Grennan’s “It Can’t Be Christmas” at number 4. The new version of Band Aid’s single had little impact beyond the first week, and it spends Christmas week at number 12.

While it had a comfortable lead, “Last Christmas” doesn’t have exceptional numbers for a 2024 number 1. It was eminently beatable – it’s just that nobody tried.

There are just three newcomers this week.

30. Slade – “Merry Xmas Everybody”

Number 1 for five weeks at Christmas 1973, this had a modern peak of 16 in 2017. Last year it only got to 32, but it also entered earlier, and spent longer on the chart.

31. KSI – “Dirty”

This track has been floating around for months but finally gets an official release as counter-programming, I guess – and with a view to being well placed for the post-Christmas lull. The publicity stunt is that the female vocalist is uncredited, KSI claims that he’s not allowed to identify her, and you’re meant to think that it’s Billie Eilish, since (1) it sounds a lot like her, and (2) she hasn’t disclaimed it, which is admittedly very accommodating of her if it isn’t her. On the other hand, she’s not on the list of writer’s credits and… well, KSI? That’s beneath her, isn’t it?

If you’re not buying the Billie Eilish story, then the other main candidate being suggested is Erika Sirola, a Finnish-Canadian singer with a reasonable track record and a somewhat similar voice. Genius list her as the singer, without citing a source.

Confusing matters, the song also appears to have been self-released to streaming services, with the same lyrics, by one Kloe Jordan earlier in the year. That version is now deleted – though search results still bring up broken links to it on Spotify and Apple Music. Here’s another of her tracks.

Since the KSI track leaked earlier in the year, it’s possible that Jordan’s version was a cover. But the lyrics for her version on paroles-musique.com (which claim to be licensed via Lyricfind but also contain some blatant transcription errors) credit the sole writer as “Kloe Vieira”, who appears to be the same person. The writer credits on the KSI record are given to Andrew Jackson, Matt Zara, Nick Gale (aka Digital Farm Animals), KSI himself and “Peikko” – a credit with no apparent track record, which Google Translate tells me is the Finnish for “troll”. Make of that what you will.

Whoever actually made it, the record’s rather good, to be fair.

37. Sir Starmer & The Granny Harmers – “Freezing This Christmas”

Ah, politics. This is a protest record about the Winter Fuel Allowance, as a cover version of Mud’s “Lonely This Christmas”. This is, to be fair, one of the Labour Party’s more controversial moves in government, and not exclusively a concern of the right – though this record is certainly from the right, and the right-wing media have got terribly excited about the prospects of it getting much higher. A bit of context, though: in 2020 and 2021 records protesting about Boris Johnson reached the top 5 in the Christmas chart. Keir Starmer just doesn’t provoke the same reaction.

This week’s climbers:

• “It Can’t Be Christmas” by Tom Grennan climbs 6-4. This is as high as he’s ever been with a solo single, though he did get to number 4 guesting on a KSI single in 2022.
• “Messy” by Lola Young climbs 11-7
• “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens climbs 16-14. It got to 10 last year.
• “A Nonsense Christmas” by Sabrina Carpenter climbs 25-16.
• “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney climbs 28-18. That’s higher than last year, when it got to 22. Its modern era peak is 17.
• “Christmas Magic” by Laufey climbs 20-19 – that’s one of the 2024 Christmas releases.
• “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano climbs 27-21, matching its alltime peak from two years ago.
• “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes climbs 23-22. It got to 20 last year.
• “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea climbs 34-25 – it peaked at 19 last year, 16 the year before, and 10 the year before that, so it’s slowly tailing off.
• “I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard (and yes, that’s the official spelling of the title) climbs 33-28. It’s another one that’s declining year on year – 10 in 2019, 12 in 2020, 15 in 2021, 19 in 2022, 25 in 2023.
• “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John & Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band featuring the Harlem Community Choir climbs 38-29, some way distant of last year’s peak of 21.
• “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis climbs 39-36. It reached 29 last year.

There’s also a re-entry at 33 for “Merry Christmas” by Ed Sheeran & Elton John, which dipped out of the top 40 last week after passing its third birthday and being hit by the downweighting rule. Fo the four tracks leaving the top 40 – most likely temporarily – are:

• “Luther” by Kendrick Lamar & SZA, which entered at 5 and lasted three weeks.
• “Popular” by Ariana Grande, which entered at 13 and lasted three weeks.
• “The Door” by Teddy Swims, which made it to number 5 after a painfully slow climb and lasted 29 weeks in the top 40.
• “Bad Dreams” by Teddy Swims, which peaked at number 6 with a more modest run of 13 weeks.

Without the Christmas songs, the top 10 would look like this:

1. (1) Gracie Abrams – “That’s So True”
2. (2) Rosé & Bruno Mars – “APT”
3. (3) Lola Young – “Messy”
4. (4) Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande – “Defying Gravity”
5. (7) Chrystal – “The Days”
6. NEW KSI – “Dirty”
7. RE Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – “Die With A Smile”
8. (9) Gigi Perez – “Sailor Song”
9. (10) The Weeknd & Playboi Carti – “Timeless”
10. RE Sabrina Carpenter – “Bed Chem”

All of those are in the top 40 – just. There’s even an eleventh non-Christmas song at 39 (“What is this Feeling” from the Wicked soundtrack).

On the album chart, “Short n’ Sweet” by Sabrina Carpenter returns to number 1 for Christmas – only its second week at number one since it was released at the start of September. But it’s never droppped below number 3 throughout that time. And there are two actual new releases:

5. The Reytons – “Clifton Park”

Live album. Their two studio albums were numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

24. Snoop Dogg & Dr Dre – “Missionary”

Or just a Snoop Dogg album produced by Dr Dre, depending on who you ask. But this is how it’s listed by the OCC and on Apple Music, so I’ll go with that. Snoop Dogg hasn’t actually placed an album in the UK top 40 since 2015.