Joseph's Hit 40

This week's highest climber is courtesy of Vaults, a British trio who were put in charge of this year's John Lewis Christmas advert soundtrack. Their cover of One Day I'll Fly Away by Randy Crawford features on the Buster the Boxer Dog advert, which is adorable and incredibly heart-warming. As a result, it becomes the fifth consecutive top 3 hit from the John Lewis Christmas adverts (ie. all of them since my chart's inception at the very end of 2011). Only one previous advert song has made #1 however, as Tom Odell's Real Love from 2014 spent 5 weeks at the top, and is this week's retro track after I saw him live on Sunday night. Lily Allen almost made the top for four weeks with Somewhere Only We Know, but blocked herself with Hard Out Here for all of those weeks!

Also new to the top 5 this week is this week's highest new entry, courtesy of Alyssa Reid. Alyssa's responsible for the biggest hit my chart has seen, with Alone Again spending five weeks at #1 and a record-holding 73 consecutive weeks (!) in my top 40. She's managed a further three #1s and three more top 10s, and now adds a fourth as Badlands featuring Likewise debuts at #5. It is the first hit for Likewise, who I'd like to tell you a bit more about but I can't really find anything on Google...

Making a 24-8 jump this week, Gabrielle Aplin finally claims her fourth top 10 hit and first in three years with Miss You. Gabrielle's previously made #3 with John Lewis song The Power of Love and also made the top tier with Please Don't Say You Love Me and Panic Cord (and quite frankly, Salvation not going top 10 is one of my biggest chart regrets). Her second era failed to live up to expectations, with only second single Sweet Nothing having made an impact, so Miss You is a huge improvement already.

Elsewhere in the chart this week, Louisa Johnson claims a third week at the top, becoming only the third song this year to get 3+ weeks at #1. The first was Shawn Mendes' Stitches, which got three weeks in January, and it was followed in March by Frans' If I Were Sorry, which had five non-consecutive weeks at the top. Louisa now has six weeks at #1 across her three #1 hits, and blocks The Vamps from becoming the third song to climb back to #1 this year.

The only other song to reach a new peak this week is September Song by JP Cooper, which jumps 31-13. This is a new career high for him, and is one of three artists to reach a personal best this week, the others being Rag'n'Bone Man (Human is new at #39) and Megan & Liz (To Be Wanted with Plug In Stereo is at #36). To Be Wanted also technically signals the first hit for Plug In Stereo, which is actually the old stage name of Trevor Dahl, who is at #17 under his actual name with When You Come Home, so it's not actually his first hit.

Britney Spears and Tinashe debut at #6 with Slumber Party this week, expect that to climb further next week when it's had a full week to impact. Also new are My Little Alien by Kate Nash, 1990 by Jakob Karlberg, Touch by Little Mix and Famous by Nathan Sykes. Touch is an album track from Little Mix's fourth album Glory Days, which becomes their first #1 in my album chart this week. Each of their albums has charted one place higher than the one before, meaning they now have a chart history of 4-3-2-1!