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Race for Christmas number one kicks off: Who will take the festive chart crown?

The artist behind last year’s Christmas number one is hoping to repeat his success, but he will have to compete with the likes of Stormzy, Taylor Swift and Lewis Capaldi for the festive accolade.

YouTube star LadBaby has released a charity single called I Love Sausage Rolls, a twist on Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, in the same vein as his 2018 chart-topper We Built This City, an ode to sausage rolls parodying Starship’s classic hit.

All proceeds for LadBaby’s novelty song will go to food bank charity The Trussell Trust for the second year running.

The vlogger, real name Mark Hoyle, told OfficialCharts.com: “The whole of last Christmas passed me by because of all the chaos.

“It only really sunk in what had happened around February. What sticks out for me was people saying we couldn’t do it … in a funny way it rallied people to get behind the song.

“Everywhere I go now people shout out at me ‘You’re the sausage roll man!’ My following since then has grown dramatically as well, and it’s given some much-needed attention to The Trussell Trust. It really is humbling to see what we achieved with them.”

Grime star Stormzy is also a contender for the Christmas number one following the release of his second album Heavy Is The Head.

LadBaby
Mark Hoyle, aka LadBaby, with his wife Roxanne Hoyle and children with their Christmas number one award in 2018 (OfficialCharts.com/PA)

The Official Charts Company said they expected a number of the tracks from the record to perform well in the charts.

US pop star Swift’s new song Christmas Tree Farm is a contender, as well as Scottish singer-songwriter Capaldi, who is hoping for the chart top spot with his single Before You Go.

The Christmas number one accolade could also go to eight-year-old Fleet schoolboy Frankie Morland, who has recorded a song called World In Danger based on his fears about climate change and the future of the planet.

Six-year-old brain tumour survivor Lyra Cole is raising money for Brain Tumour Research with her version of Johnny Mathis’s 1976 Christmas number one When A Child Is Born.

Frankie and Lyra are both among the bookies’ favourites to take the number one spot next week.

As the race for Christmas number one kicks off, other songs in contention are the reigning number one Dance Monkey by Australian artist Tones and I, Ellie Goulding’s new single River – a cover of the Joni Mitchell song recorded for Amazon Music as part of their Amazon Originals series – and rapper D Double E’s song Fresh N Clean (Silence The Critics) from the Ikea Christmas advert.

Robbie Williams’s Bad Sharon featuring boxer Tyson Fury is also a contender, the Official Charts Company said, as is James Blunt’s latest single Monsters and Bastille’s cover of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling from the John Lewis Christmas advert.

The Christmas number one will be announced on Friday December 20.