In and around those 70s/80s classics are old timers like Sinatra, Crosby, Martin, Williams, King Cole and ‘newbies’ such as Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, Ed Sheeran, George Ezra and Alexandra Burke.

Originally released in 2017, Everyday Is Christmas yielded the song Santa’s Coming For Us, a Top 20 hit in 2019, while last year saw the song Snowman crack the Top 100. While over in the UK, punters haven’t been too fussed about Wrapped In Red as a whole – preferring the single Underneath The Tree, which reached an Official Singles Chart high of Number 15 last year and clocking 84 million streams to date. Seeing as the Official Singles Chart now becomes flooded with yule-themed bops of all vintages each Christmas, this year’s will be the most contemporary, most streamed and chart-busting album imaginable, as the combined figures of streams and sales for the likes of Wham! It’s as gently jazzy, cosy and warming as you’d imagine from Norah, who has three Official Album Chart Number 1s to her name.No such messing around with Kelly Clarkson, as When Christmas Comes Around marks her second foray into the festive pop market following 2013’s Wrapped In Red. Leona Lewis’ 2013 evergreen One More Sleep is among the UK's most streamed Christmas songs, with just over 90 million streams so far, and counting. million chart sales, and four of its tracks rank among the Top 40 most-streamed Christmas songs, led by It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, with 126 million plays. Among these newies are previously released duets with Rod Stewart (Winter Wonderland) and The Puppini Sisters (Frosty The Snowman) plus two brand-new tunes: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow with BBC Big Band Orchestra and original composition The Christmas Sweater.

It’s a bit of a surprise after 30 years into a pop career that Gary has only just got around to making a Christmas album.The Pogues, Chris Rea, Band Aid, Wizzard, Shakin’ Stevens, Chris Rea, Saint Etienne, Slade, Justin Bieber and more are truly eye-watering. Now, in the last decade, UK acts have been playing catch-up with Robbie Williams, Saint Etienne, Tracey Thorn, honorary Brit Kylie and more entering into the spirit of an album of yuletide bops, and now the schedules from September onwards are increasingly festive. There’s even space for what I believe is a new-to-CD rarity in the 12-inch version of Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, although the compilers also include the standard version AS WELL, so there can be no complaining. Nat King Cole’s Christmas legacy is secure already with his The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire), a song he first recorded in 1946 and which was massively successful in the pre-chart era.

That album is ten years old this year, and to celebrate, everyone’s favourite crooner is reissuing it with seven new tracks. It started the pre-rock era, when Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Jim Reeves were the big hitters, and then through the generations everyone was at it – Elvis Presley, Phil Spector, Dolly Parton, Destiny’s Child, Christina Aguilera onwards. The new material sees him team up with jazz turns Lady Blackbird, Kansas Smitty’s and The Vernon Spring for further adventures in a winter wonderland with covers of Amazing Grace, Sleigh Ride and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen for a very cool yule.Kirsty MacColl, Pretenders, Aled Jones, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Flying Pickets, The Housemartins, Paul Young, East 17 AND MORE!

Jamie Cullum’s festive offering The Pianoman At Christmas narrowly missed the Top 10 last year, and so he’s probably hoping to improve upon that this year with the release of a new expanded affair now subtitled The Complete Edition. If it follows the form of previous solo albums, it could become his fourth Number 1 following last year’s Music Played By Humans. It’s also not the first time digital trickery has been utilised with the star, as his daughter Natalie Cole has “duetted” with him on two collections – 1991’s Unforgettable and 2009’s Still Unforgettable.

He’s unleashed his first solo Christmas album, having been involved with three Glee Christmas releases in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and it comes with the very hohoho title of A Very Darren Crissmas. The album has since been superseded by subsequent two-disc and later three-disc releases in the 2000s. Fresh(ish) from playing Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, one-time Glee alumnus, and star in his own right, Darren Criss has come a long way since his time as Blaine Anderson, with a host of theatre credits and a recent role in the Muppets Haunted Mansion.