The first chart of the post-Christmas period is always insane, as the Christmas records crash straight out of the top 100, and the records that would have been in the top 40 flood back in to take their place. I’m not going to bother documenting all the records leaving the top 40 this week – it’s everything aside from number 13, 31, 32, 37 and 38. One point that is worth mentioning, though, is that with the departure of his Christmas record from 2022, Ed Sheeran no longer has any singles in the top 40. The last Sheeranless top 40 was in June 2021, just before the release of “Bad Habits”.

So – who’s still standing in the rubble?

1. Raye featuring 070 Shake – “Escapism”

Yay! This entered the chart at the start of December, and it’s hung in there throughout the Christmas storm – it’s had four weeks in the top 10 so far, and it was still at 13 last week. It’s fantastic and plainly deserves to be a number one. If it wasn’t for the Christmas back catalogue, it would have been already.

It’s Raye’s first number one, and 070 Shake goes onto the one-hit wonder list for now.

Number 2 is Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero”, rebounding from number 53; it was a number 1 in November and the start of December. Number 3 is “Messy in Heaven” by venbee & goddard, which previous peaked at 3 before the Christmas period. So the natural order of things is reasserting itself. For once, we might as well do the climbers first – these are the records reaching new peaks this week:

• “Kill Bill” by SZA climbs to 4, having previous struggled to 15 during the Christmas period. It’s not quite her biggest UK hit, since she guested on Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More”, which reached number 3 in 2021. But it’s her first top 10 hit as a lead artist.
• “Let Go” by Central Cee reached 9 two weeks ago as a bold counter-programming new release, and now rebounds to 6.
• “Calm Down” by Rema, which has been on the top 40 since September and never quite got pushed out during the Christmas period, rebounds from 37 to 8; it scraped a couple of weeks at 10 before Christmas.
• “Out of Nowhere” by Bugzy Malone & TeeDee rebounds from 38 to 9. It spend two weeks at 13 at the start of December. It’s Malone’s first top 10 hit (and remains TeeDee’s only one).
• “Another Love” by Tom Odell is a back catalogue track reactivated by TikTok which spent seven weeks on the chart in 2013, peaking at number 10. It’s been hanging around on its current run since September, and had got up to number 12 before the Christmas period; it now returns matching its previous peak of 10. Since it’s spent 16 weeks in the top 40 in this run, it’s a bigger – in the sense of more sustained – hit than it was the first time around.
• “Creepin'” by Metro Boomin featuring the Weeknd & 21 Savage entered at 13 in mid December and re-enters now at 12.
• “Pointless” by Lewis Capaldi entered at 20 in mid December, promptly got shouldered aside, and now re-enters at 15.
• “10:35” by Tiesto & Tate McRae is a more surprising return – it managed a single week at number 39 in November and was already gone before the Christmas rush. For whatever reason, it re-enters now at 18.
• “Golden Hour” by JVKE, which peaked at 36 at the start of December, now returns at 24.

And now the new entries…

22. Lady Gaga – “Bloody Mary”

This is an album track from 2011’s “Born This Way”. It’s here thanks to our good friends at TikTok, who thought it would be a good soundtrack to the dance routine from Wednesday, Netflix’s surprisingly successful attempt to reinvent the Addams Family as a comedy drama.

The music in the original is the Cramps’ version of “Goo Goo Muck” from their 1981 album “Psychedelic Jungle”; the obscure original was released in 1962 by Ronnie Cook & the Gaylads. The Cramps have only had one top 40 hit in the UK – “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns” reached number 35 in 1990.

28. Stephen Sanchez – “Until I Found You”

Debut hit. This has been hovering around the lower reaches of the top 100 on and off since June, but it came out as long ago as September 2021. It’s another record that TikTok have been getting behind; the track itself is a perfectly pleasant doo-wop throwback.

38. Lil Uzi Vert – “Just Wanna Rock”

Similarly, this has been floating around outside the top 40 since the start of November and now finally scrapes in. I quite like it – it’s a bit different, at least. Lil Uzi Vert hasn’t had a hit single since “P2” reached number 37 in spring 2020, and he’s never actually got above number 25.

39. Cian Ducrot – “I’ll Be Waiting”

Again, this came out in November but the Christmas records have kept it out of the top 40 until now. Ducrot’s previous single, “All for You”, peaked at 19 and is now at number 35.

40. Headie One – “50S”

This came out in the run-up to Christmas, making number 48 in its first week. I really like the production on this.

The album chart remains moribund. “Midnights” by Taylor Swift returns to number 1 for a fourth non-consecutive week.