It’s week two of the dead period over Christmas and New Year, so once again there’s not much going on here.  Let’s bash through it quickly anyway.

Another batch of hits from earlier in the year enjoy rebounds on the strength of post-Christmas year-in-review playlists, re-entering at the bottom end of the charts.  (Specifically: “Prayer in C” by Lilly Wood at 39, “All of Me” by John Legend at 36, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams at 34, “Changing” by Sigma at 33, and “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit at 28.)  Otherwise…

35.  Kanye West featuring Paul McCartney – “Only One” 

This was released on Thursday, so it’s charting here on the strength of three days’ sales, and without advance promotion.  It’s going to climb next week.  There’s no video for this, but you can hear it on the front page of Kanye’s website, linked to above.  It’s pretty enough, but the sentiment doesn’t greatly move me; The Guardian described it as “precisely as touching and tender as you would expect from a song about how great Kanye West’s mother thought Kanye West was”, and I’m inclined to agree.

Apparently there’s a whole load of Kanye West/Paul McCartney collaborations on their way, which have given journalists the opportunity to to articles about how Kanye West fans have never heard of Paul McCartney.  More likely, lazy hacks have never heard of irony.  McCartney is playing the keyboards on this one.  McCartney was last in the top 40 in 2007 when “Dance Tonight” reached number 26.

10.  Hozier – “Take Me To Church”

Climbing 13 places.  There’s always one track that rises to the top during the dead period, and Hozier seems to be it this year.  Intriguingly, this is number 3 on the streaming chart and only 15 on sales.  Apparently a lot of people like a bit of angst over their New Year.

2.  Philip George – “Wish You Were Here”

The only new release this week of any significance (other than Kanye), this is the debut hit for a producer from Nottingham.  It’s one of several tracks that he put on Soundcloud a while back, but that evidently doesn’t deter record labels from licensing it and selling it.

It’s basically a 90s house backing put to a speeded up sample of Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”, a number 4 hit from 1969.  That’s a pretty high-profile sample to get cleared, particularly without a featured artist credit.  Supposedly Stevie Wonder authorised it personally, though you never know how seriously to take these press release tales.  It’s certainly a transformation job on the song, but it’s in a pretty similar vein to a lot of tracks we’ve had over the last year.

Wonder was last in the charts with a credit hit in 2005, when “So What The Fuss” made 19.

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

That’s three weeks total.  It currently looks on course for a fourth.

On the album chart, there are no new entries at all.  “Wanted on Voyage” by George Ezra returns to number 1, having previously spent a couple of weeks on top in October.