The Irony Of Fate
A possible downside of having entire archives freely available on this site is that it is easy to look up when I hit the same points at the same time each year. It is also very possible that I've complained about this before as well - not least over Christmas.
But here we are anyway. The first singles chart after the Christmas holidays is almost as bizarre as the ones that preceded it, a press of the great reset button as the festive songs melt away and everything and everyone that was swept away in their wake clicks back to where you presume they would have been lurking all along.
This year however, the circumstances are slightly different. This is technically the first chart of 2026, but this has nothing to do with the publication date nor the date of its validity, merely because it surveys at least one day in the new year. And this year it is literally one day - New Years Day on Thursday the only part of 2026 that this countdown serves. This odd cadence of the calendar means that there will be 53 singles charts published this year. While this is technically "Week 1" as far as the databases are concerned, really this is "Week 0" - 2026 starts for real next time around.
This singles chart is also always notable for one other reason - the massive reset in the market size (down a colossal 18% on the week) means to apply the normal rules would essentially wipe out the ACR status of every record on the chart as literally everyone beats the dip in the market. So for one week only special rules apply - labels get to nominate tracks they would like to see reset (and it is quite likely that this happens automatically for any that fell to that status in December). Things get put back they way they were before Christmas ruined things so we can go again from scratch. There's no more tacit admission that the Christmas songs knacker up the usual processes than this slightly artificial tweaking.
But that does at least mean there are always stories to tell.
BABY!
The new year has always been RAYE's time. It was in the first weeks of 2023 that she finally came into her own as a star, pre-Christmas hit Escapism lived up to its name, escaping the festive mess to power its way to the top of the charts and allow her to fully come into her own as a superstar. Three years on she repeats the trick. For so many weeks the bridesmaid her epic single Where Is My Husband! enjoys not only a reset of the ACR status it fell to a fortnight ago but finally what some would argue is a long overdue climb to No.1. This is Where Is My Husband's 15th week as a chart single, which is a slow climb to the top but by no means a record. Ignoring those tracks which went away and returned as No.1 hits (sometimes literally decades later), the record for the slowest climb to No.1 in a single uninterrupted chart run is still held by Ed Sheeran and the 19 odyssey of Thinking Out Loud in 2015.
I didn't get RAYE's song to start with, I'll freely admit. But by topping the charts it deserves a re-evaluation. The brass-laden romp is every bit a coming out party as her previous smashes, the proof that even after being given the room for self-indulgences such as Genesis and mysterious failures such as Mark Ronson collaboration Suzanne, when it matters she can pull a huge pop hit out of the pile and utterly kill with it. Where Is My Husband! is epic in its own way, the verses a frantic stream of consciousness that contain more lyrics than half a normal album. It is a superstar performance in every sense, the proof of her uniqueness as an artist (one that she had to leave the big labels to fully express), and in truth a real cause for celebration. Especially as it is now No.1.
Due to circumstances Where Is My Husband! leaps 48-1, meaning both of her No.1 hits to date have climbed to the top from outside the Top 10 (Escapism having moved 13-1 during its own coronation). It is the first song to jump to No.1 from outside the Top 40 since Now And Then by The Beatles moved 42-1 in 2023, and the biggest such leap since Rachel Platten flew 68-1 with Fight Song back in 2015.
Those Who Missed
Our sympathies then go to Taylor Swift who you just know would have killed to see The Fate Of Ophelia shoot back to the top. But she's stranded at No.2, one place ahead of Dave and Tems who reach a brand new peak with Raindance but alas seem just as far from No.1 as they ever did. Swift can justifiably feel aggrieved, the gap between her and RAYE is a mere 478 chart sales - the closest chart race we've seen since Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso edged her own Please Please Please out by just 49 sales in July 2024.
Britain's unquenchable thirst for our other chart Queen of the moment means that Olivia Dean lands on the next three rungs: So Easy (To Fall In Love) at 4, Rein Me In (alongside Sam Fender) at 5, and Man I Need at 6 The latter remains on ACR status and - not for the first time is the actual biggest single of the week, its unadjusted sales would have been enough to return it to the top. Album The Art Of Loving is once more back at No.1 which is only right and proper. If you make only one new year's resolution, make it to listen to more Olivia Dean. Life is so much better that way.
All Stranger Things Must End
Back in the Top 10 in quite extraordinary fashion is End Of Beginning from DJO, a track which originally peaked at No.4 in March last year but which embarked on a mini comeback in December after the real-life Joe Keery came to prominence as Stranger Things reached a climax - of which more shortly. Now granted a timely reset the hit is, well, back to the beginning. No.7 this week it is a Top 10 single for the first time since April.
We've started so we might as well continue. The new-look for '26 Top 10 is rounded out by the still shining former No.1 Golden at No.8, while one place below the newly viral Lush Life from Zara Larsson is itself a Top 10 single for the first time since May 2016 when it was also placed at No.9. Will it now have a chance to approach its original No.3 peak from fully ten years ago?
To round off, the track we were secretly all hoping would approach No.1 at this time is at least properly a Top 10 hit for the first time as I Run by Haven and Kaitlin Aragon bounces to No.10 to exceed its pre-Christmas No.14 peak.
Keep an eye out too for Die On This Hill by Siena Spiro, a song which had fought its way to No.9 in late November before fading and falling victim to the holidays. But it too is bounding back and is No.12 for its highest chart placing in five weeks.
Breaking Water
To work out what the actual "new" entries are takes careful concentration, but the biggest effective debut is that of Chanel from the always mesmerising Tyla. The Afrobeats star's new single spent the holiday drifting around the bottom of the Top 75, but this was an entirely false position thanks to Christmas hits occupying many of the higher rungs. With them all mostly out of the way it now shoots to No.15, deservedly her first Top 20 hit since the similarly epic Water reached No.4 in late 2023.
New Year New Oldies
I mentioned the return of Stranger Things to streaming prominence, and as you might have expected its distinctly 80s aesthetic has prompted a surge of interest in specific songs from its soundtrack. Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush is once more back in focus, the former No.1 single back at No.16 for its best chart run since the fantasy series propelled it to No.1 back in 2022. But there is a new threat to her crown, this time in the shape of American teenager (as she was) Tiffany and her take on the Tommy James and The Shondells bubblegum classic I Think We're Alone Now. 38 years ago this week it was on its way to the top of the charts and this week it is a Top 40 hit for the first time since, a genuine new entry at No.29. The series is also behind the chart returns for Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash (No.42) and Every Breath You Take by The Police (No.58 - although this is the only one without an ACR reset). Now I'm going to have to watch the damn show to find out why.
Leave It Cliff, It Isn't Worth It
The cadence of the calendar mentioned above means this week presents a unique opportunity to learn something new about streaming habits. The bold assumption that Christmas listening dies out completely the moment the day is over doesn't quite play out in reality. While the amount of songs that are streamed does indeed drop off a cliff from the 25th to the 26th onwards it is clear that there is still a substantial appetite for festive songs in the days that follows. Perhaps the timing is a factor too. Christmas Day was a Thursday, meaning Boxing Day and the 27th reach into what you might see as an extended Christmas weekend.
That's a long-winded way of noting that there was still plenty of Christmas song activity to impact this chart survey, so unlike in recent years the Week 1 (or Week 0) chart of 2026 is not entirely bereft of seasonal songs. And indeed the biggest are still in the Top 40, at the bottom end I grant you, but there are enough of them to be notable. Last Christmas "only" dives 1-21 (last year it was 1-42) with last week's No.2 and No.3 singles now resting at 31 and 32 respectively. Stuck in the middle is Kylie's XMAS which dives 4-22. It is all rather fascinating. And that means there is room for even more new entries next week as the new year proper begins.
Ah yes, new entries. Proper new entries. Are there any? There are a few, but you have to tease them out of the morass of returning hits. All the bold predictions about hits in waiting that I made last year came to naught, so there will be no speculating this time around. But keep an eye out for the previously little-charted Turn The Lights Off by Kato featuring Jon (No.33) and perhaps even PinkPantheress' Stateside, a track that dates back from last May, resurfaced in October thanks to the release of a new version adding Zara Larsson vocals and now returns to the new year fray with its highest entry yet at No.40. She has another hit in her somewhere. It didn't turn out to be Illegal, so perhaps it is this one.
