Kylie Leads 3-Way Battle for Christmas Number One
Kylie Minogue tops a three-way Christmas chart race, leading Wham! and a Gaza charity single in one of the closest Christmas Number One battles yet.
Pop star Kylie Minogue is leading a three-way race for this year's Christmas number one, according to the Official Charts Company.
Her festive single XMAS is currently 7,000 units ahead of its closest rival, Wham's Last Christmas – which has topped the charts for the past two years.
In third place, and just 231 sales behind Wham, is the charity single Lullaby, by Together For Palestine – a supergroup featuring artists such as Dan Smith from Bastille, Celeste, Neneh Cherry, Nadine Shah, Brian Eno and Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix.
If Kylie maintains her lead, XMAS would become her first number one single since Slow in 2003.
"It's been an incredible year, so this would be the icing on the cake."
Kylie's song, which she performed on Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday night, also features a dance routine spelling out the letters X-M-A-S, essentially a Christmas YMCA.
More importantly, in chart terms, it's an Amazon exclusive. This means it features prominently in playlists you hear when you ask an Amazon-branded smart speaker to play Christmas music – and all those streams count towards the chart.
Kylie's Christmas conundrum
XMAS is a brand new song, recorded for the 10th-anniversary edition of the star's Kylie Christmas album, which topped the album charts last week.
It dates back to the original recording sessions, but was never completed. Kylie said she always regretted that the song wasn't finished. "It's not something I've constantly thought about, but it's been in the back of my mind.
"As the years went by, I kept thinking someone else would release a song called Xmas – and it would be terrible if I hadn't finished it in time.
"It's the only song that's stayed with me for so long." However, this isn't the first time Kylie has been in the running for the festive top spot: in 1988, Especially For You came a very close second to Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine.
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"That's the level I want to be at."
Wham!'s Last Christmas is currently the number one single; and its huge streaming numbers could keep the band at the top spot.
If that happens, Last Christmas will make history by becoming the first song to reach Christmas number one three times.
Meanwhile, the UK's best-selling song over the weekend was the Together For Palestine charity single, which will raise funds to help the people of Gaza.
It's based on the traditional Palestinian folk song Yamma Mwel El Hawa (Mother, Sing to the Wind), with new English lyrics written by Peter Gabriel.
Palestinian singer Nai Barghouti, who features on the track, says: "This song has truly been a part of my life since childhood.
"I remember recording it for the first time when I was 11, and it's travelled with me to so many places since then.
"Its lyrics always reaffirm what it means to be Palestinian – the resilience, the resistance, the beauty, the dignity, and the never-ending sense of hope."
She says being included in the Christmas charts would be "a little ray of light in so much darkness". According to data from the Official Charts Company, the song has sold fewer than 10,000 copies so far. However, it hasn't yet cracked Spotify's Top 100 – meaning that as the week progresses and other contenders rack up more streams, it could slip down the rankings.
Those songs include Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You (currently projected to be at number four) and The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale of New York (which is at number five). Fairytale is the third best-selling single of the week, boosted by a limited-edition zoetrope vinyl release on Friday.
The song has reached every position in the Top 20 except number one; and strong streaming numbers could help it climb higher.
According to the Official Charts Company, there is a difference of fewer than 10,000 "sales" between the top five.
"However, this is only early data, so the picture is expected to change as more streaming data comes in throughout the week."
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