It’s the annual dead chart for Christmas week.  The British care about the Christmas Number One, but that means the record that’s number one on Christmas Day, i.e. the one that sold best in the week preceding Christmas.  Christmas week itself, nobody cares about in the slightest – and so nobody releases anything, except for oddballs hoping to sneak a number one hit in an easy week.  These days, it also tends to be a chart of rebounding long-running hits, presumably because of people spending their Christmas gift vouchers and buying music for their new gadgets.

For those who really care, the major rebounders this year are: “Waves” by Mr Probz (49-39), “Rude” by Magic! (54-36), “Sing” by Ed Sheeran (37-27), “Blame it on Me” by George Ezra (34-24), “Budapest” by ditto (28-21), “Don’t” by Ed Sheeran (27-18), “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift (32-15), and “Bang Bang” by Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj (23-11).

That leaves us with one re-entry, one new entry, and a change of number one, so this is going to be a short one…

38.  Shakin’ Stevens – “Merry Christmas Everyone”

Wow.  I don’t think even the music channels play the minute-long intro on that video, and frankly, I can see why.  Why does it exist?  This was the Christmas number 1 in 1985 – and nobody played videos in full back then.  Even MTV Europe didn’t launch until 1987.

This is actually a surprise appearance in the chart, because although it is wheeled out every December, it usually falls short of the top 40 – it hasn’t charted since 2008.  Also, the Christmas hits have usually peaked by this point, since their sales drop off a cliff after the big day.

Shakin’ Stevens was a Welsh 50s throwback, who had 14 top ten hits between 1981 and 1987.  They include four number 1s – this song, and covers of “This Ole House”, “Green Door” and “Oh Julie”.

He’s unlikely to be familiar to American readers (and indeed anyone under the age of 30 in the UK will probably know him only from his Christmas hit), but he was a pretty big star in his day, and he did have some international success across Europe.  According to Wikipedia, he has a new album in the works.

6.  Alesso featuring Tove Lo – “Heroes (We Could Be)”

There’s always one.  Literally one, this year.  Swedish DJ Alesso technically has a number 1 hit to his credit, but it’s “Under Control”, his collaboration with Calvin Harris, and it’s pretty safe to say that Harris’ name sold most of those records.  He also remixed OneRepublic’s “If I Lose Myself”, which got to number 8 at the start of the year.

“Heroes” was apparently released as an instrumental earlier in the year, and then reissued internationally with the vocal track added.  Tove Lo is a Swedish singer who had a top ten hit of her own in March with the rather good (but heavily remixed, in the version that was promoted) “Stay High”, but until now seemed to do nothing to follow it up.

It’s a pretty routine Swedish dance-pop single which wouldn’t merit much more comment than this in a normal week, and I’m not going to make an exception for it just because nothing else is going on.

1.  Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk”

The natural order of things is restored, as X Factor winner Ben Haenow can’t hold on for a second week (not least because he’s dependent on physical sales to very casual record buyers, and the shops have been closed).  “Uptown Funk” duly returns to the top for a second week, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it hang on for a third.

Of more note, “Uptown Funk” has now set the record for the highest weekly stream count since the charts started tracking it – 2.49 million.

The album chart is, of course, completely moribund.  Ed Sheeran predictably rounds out the year on top.