With new X Factor champions Rak-Su's coronation single Dimelo (feat. Naughty Boy & Wyclef Jean) falling 2-6 (27,881 sales), Ed Sheeran has an easy victory atop the singles chart with Perfect selling a further 58,436 copies on its second week at the summit.
Perfect's parent album ÷ returns to No.1 on the album chart, earning Sheeran the seventh double of his career, all of them this year. Sheeran has now spent 19 weeks at No.1 on the singles chart (16 of them in 2017) and 34 weeks at No.1 on the albums chart (18 of them this year) and is second on the list of most weeks at No.1 in the 2010s on both lists, trailing Justin Bieber (30 weeks) on singles and Adele (36 weeks) on albums. Only Frankie Laine (27 weeks in 1953) and Elvis Presley (18 weeks in 1961) have spent more weeks at No.1 on the singles chart in a calendar year than Sheeran has this year.
Driven primarily by sales of the Beyonce duet version – which nevertheless fails to win her a chart credit from OCC – Perfect's persistence denies Mariah Carey's seasonal perennial All I Want For Christmas Is You the opportunity of becoming her third No.1. Jumping 5-2 (34,944 sales) to match the peak position it held for three weeks in its initial 1994 chart run, All I Want For Christmas Is You has spent 69 weeks in the Top 75 – a total which would be higher still if prevailing regulations hadn't prevented it from charting in 2005 and 2006, and lower were it not given a huge boost from streaming in the current climate. It has made the cut for 11 years in a row.
Fellow festive veterans Last Christmas by Wham! and Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl have spent even longer in the Top 75 – 71 weeks and 81 weeks, respectively – but are trailing All I Want For Christmas Is You in the current week, with the former advancing 6-3 (32,741 sales) and the latter moving 10-7 (27,233 sales).
The rest of this week's Top 10: Havana (4-4, 31,893 sales) by Camila Cabello, Anywhere (3-5, 28,773 sales) by Rita Ora, Man’s Not Hot (8-8, 26,499 sales) by Big Shaq, Silence (7-9, 24,487 sales) by Marshmello feat Khalid and I Miss You (9-10, 23,389 sales) by Clean Bandit feat. Julia Michaels.
Camila Cabello's Never Be The Same (No.46, 9,505 sales) and Eminem's Untouchable (No.73, 6,296 sales) are the only non-seasonal new entries to the Top 75 this week, Cabello's tally of hits since departing Fifth Harmony is seven, while Eminem has now had 51 hits (including five with D12). Untouchable is from his new album Revival, which dropped on Friday (December 15).
The week's other Top 75 debuts are Christmas-related: From Michael Buble's 2011 album Christmas comes his 15th hit Holly Jolly Christmas (96-55, 8,714 sales), while Sia's brand new Christmas album, Everyday Is Christmas spawns its first hit and her 20th, Santa's Coming For Us (78-65, 7,309 sales).
There are also new peaks for five Christmas songs: Michael Buble's 2011 recording It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas (45-18, 17,361 sales) surpasses the No.27 peak it scaled last year; Elton John's Step Into Christmas (63-19, 16,622 sales) improves on the No.24 high it secured in the first week of 1974; Chris Rea, in the news for all the wrong reasons with his health scare this week, surges 68-23 (15,706 sales) with his 1988 single Driving Home For Christmas, beating its Christmas 2016 peak of No.26; Ariana Grande's 2014 No.68 single, Santa Tell Me returned at No.60 last week and now hurtles to No.29 (12,843 sales); and Kylie Minogue's 2000 b-side Santa Baby – which made its first Top 75 appearance at No.72 in the last chart of 2016 – dashes 98-47 (9,381 sales). There are also digital era peaks for Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree (42-15, 18,309 sales) and Bing Crosby's White Christmas (84-38, 10,897 sales), among others. Altogether, there are 24 Christmas-related songs in the Top 75.
There are new peaks within the Top 75 for: Let You Down (13-11, 20,251 sales) by NF and Barking (41-27, 13,854 sales) by Ramz.
Overall singles sales are down 2.20% week-on-week to 14,928,411, 31.76% above same week 2016 sales of 11,330,194. Streams accounted for 13,937,121 sales, a record 93.36% of the total. Paid-for sales are down 13.97% week -on-week at 991,290, and are 35.14% below same week 2016 sales of 1,528,421. They are below same-week, previous-year sales for the 228th week in a row.
