These are shown in Figure 1, and include ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ by Band Aid, which is the only song to have held the position more than once three times in fact.Ī similar number of songs that have held the Christmas Number Two spot use Christmas terminology, with Mariah Carey reaching second place twice, but never the top spot.įigure 1: Number of Christmas Themed Songs at Number One vs Number 2 in the Christmas Chart (Image by author)

This was supplemented with information on the most popular songs in December from Kaggle.ĭid you know that only one in seven (14.5% to be precise) of the Christmas Number Ones have Christmas-themed titles? We’ll also use the top 200 streams each week in December from 2017 to 2020 via Spotify Charts. The datasets we’ll use include information about all UK Christmas Number Ones and Number Twos, as well as the top 10 Christmas charts from 2011 to 2020 from the Official Chart. The best way to get this yuletide activity started is to find some reliable, comprehensive data on our holiday listening habits.

The goal: to learn how annual trends have developed and understand what makes a Christmas song popular.

To get into the festive spirit, we want to use Python to explore the data behind this modern Christmas tradition in the run up to the winner announcement on Christmas Eve. The battle to get to Christmas Number One in the UK charts has been highly contested for decades, with artists releasing seasonal tracks and Christmas-themed videos, or attempting to outdo the festive tunes with a dependable pop banger.Īs we speak, YouTube’s LadBaby is attempting to break the record for most Christmas Number Ones - set by The Beatles in 1967.

Christmas themed spotify logo