Christmas comes but once a year, and when it comes it brings deep sighing.

1. LadBaby – “Food Aid”

And you thought it was tiresome when Simon Cowell got the Christmas number one every year. Mark Hoyle has now had the Christmas number 1 five years running, which, yes, means he’s beaten the record that he previous set with the Beatles. This had a certain fluke charm in the first year, but it’s now starting to feel like someone trying to establish himself as a national institution even though you probably never hear of him the rest of the year.

Granted, the fact that somebody doesn’t impinge on my consciousness doesn’t mean they aren’t big in the world of YouTube but… well, LadBaby has 1.08m subscribers and the video above is listed as having 692,000 views after a week online. That’s not YouTube A-lister territory. Sales and streams are down by over half from last year’s record; I suspect he’ll now quit while he’s ahead.

It’s another record raising money for food banks (and Band Aid, since they own the songwriting royalties for “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and the charity still exists). As a record, it’s uninspired. And while food poverty is a serious and alarming issue in the UK – the very fact that a charity record for that cause has been Christmas number one five years running is deeply disturbing – it can’t help but seem trivial when you invite comparisons to the Ethiopian famine of 1983-1985, which killed over a quarter of a million people on even the most conservative estimates. The whole thing seems misguided.

The random celebrity guest on the record is Martin Lewis, a financial journalist and campaigner responsible for the moneysavingexpert.com website. He’s a bigger name in the UK than you might think. This isn’t his first involvement with a top 40 single; he also had a hand in “I Fought the Lloyds” by Oystar, a song about bank charges which inexplicably reached number 25 in 2018.

3. The Sidemen – “Christmas Drillings”

More YouTubers… but this is KSI’s outfit, so it’s a rather different proposition. In comparison to LadBaby, by the way, this bunch have 7.39m subscribers and the video above has 8.8 million views.

It’s a comedy record, and given the lyrics I’m not sure how serious they ever really were about making this a hit. I think it was genuinely intended principally as YouTube content. But judged as a comedy record… it’s actually not bad at all. If they’d really wanted to be Christmas number 1 they might actually have been able to do it.

7. The Kunts – “Fuck the Tories”

YouTube won’t let you embed age-restricted videos any more, so you’ll just have to follow the link. It’s a hard world.

This is the now the third top ten Christmas hit for the Kunts, following “Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt” and “Boris Johnson Is Still A Fucking Cunt”, both of which reached number 5. Judged as an actual song, this is unquestionably the best of the bunch, even if it lands two places lower.

9. Central Cee – “Let Go”

Well, that’s what you call counter programming, I guess. Based on a wildly improbable sample for a drill act: the one-hit wonder “Let Her Go” by Passenger, which reached number 2 in 2013. The result is a curious mixture of sentimentality and aggression (which, to be fair, seems to be the idea).

38. Justin Bieber – “Mistletoe”

A marginal track for the annual deluge. It reached number 21 on release in 2011. Its streaming era peak was 27 and it got to 31 last year but it seems to be tailing off.

39. Darlene Love – “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”

Another minor track from the back catalogue, though it did get to 22 one year. Last year it reached 32.

The top 10 tracks with no Christmas (or novelty) element are:

• 1 (1) Raye featuring 070 Shake – “Escapism” (no 6)
• 2 (-) Central Cee – “Let Go” (no 9)
• 3 (3) Stormzy – “Firebabe” (no 10)
• 4 (2) Taylor Swift – “Anti-hero” (no 12)
• 5 (6) SZA – “Kill Bill” (no 20)
• 6 (5) Meghan Trainor – “Made You Look” (no 23)
• 7 (9) Bugzy Malone & Teedee – “Out of Nowhere” (no 27)
• 8 (-) Rema – “Calm Down” (no 33)
• 9 (8) Metro Boomin featuring the Weeknd & 21 Savage – “Creepin'” (no 37)
• 10 (-) Lewis Capaldi – “Pointless” (no 40)

This week’s climbers are few and far between, since the Christmas tracks are already logjammed and there are some high new entries to push them down.

• “Someday at Christmas” by Lizzo climbs 22-15.
• “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano climbs 34-29.
• “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes climbs 32-30.
• “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Michael Bublé climbs 33-31.
• “Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John & Yoko featuring the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir climbs 35-34.
• “Snowman” by Sia climbs 37-35, matching its peak from last year.
• “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade climbs 38-36

All these tracks have been higher in previous years (except “Snowman”), but remember that next week’s chart will be the one covering streams on 23-26 December, so they have another chance yet. That said, history shows that Christmas streaming falls off a cliff after Boxing Day, so it could be a weird chart.

There are six new entries plus a re-entry for Lewis Capaldi at 40. The tracks making way for them (but likely to be returning to the top 40 to fill a vacuum in short order) are:

• “Rich Flex” by Drake & 21 Savage, which reached number 3.
• “Messy in Heaven” by venbee & goddard, which must have been hammered by the downweighting rule for older tracks as it drops straight out of the top 10.
• “Shirt” and “Nobody Gets Me” by SZA, both tracks from last week’s album.
• “Miss You” by Oliver Tree & Robin Schulz, which reached 3 and drops straight out of the top 20.
• “Psycho” by Anne-Marie & Aitch, which peaked at 5.
• “Another Love” by Tom Odell, a 2013 back catalogue track which got to number 12 on its current run.

As for the album chart, nobody releases albums in Christmas week. There are no new entries in the top 40; the Christmas number 1 is “Midnights” by Taylor Swift, returning for a third week at number 1, seven weeks after it got knocked off. To be fair, it’s never dropped below 3. The album charts these days are a mix of one-week wonders and records that stick around forever – there are four former number ones still in the top 10 (Michael Bublé, Sam Ryder, Harry Styles and George Ezra). Ryder probably won’t stick around long, but getting a second week in the top 10 is still respectable.