Fourteen singles from 2020 remained in the top 10 for several weeks at the beginning of the year, while "Seventeen Going Under" by Sam Fender, "Coming for You" by SwitchOTR featuring A1 x J1, "Overseas" by D-Block Europe featuring Central Cee, "ABCDEFU" by Gayle, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee and "Come On Home for Christmas" by George Ezra were all released in 2021 but did not reach their peak until 2022.
The Kid Laroi, Mimi Webb, Olivia Rodrigo, Sam Fender and Tom Grennan were among the many artists who achieved their first top 10 single in 2021.
's iconic festive classic "Last Christmas", written by the group's lead singer George Michael, finally reached the coveted number-one spot in the UK chart.
Prior to it reaching number one, "Last Christmas" had for many years held the record as the highest-selling single never to top the charts, with 1.9 million copies sold (not including streams).
[6][7][8] On 28 May 2021 (3 June 2021, week ending), American singer Olivia Rodrigo became the youngest solo artist to achieve the coveted UK chart double at 18 years and 3 months old.
Heartbreak Anthem, the trio's collaboration with Swedish music duo Galantis, and French DJ David Guetta, placed at number 7, marking their 100th week in the Top 10 across all of their releases.
[1] On 25 June 2021 (1 July 2021, week ending), rock group Måneskin, winners of the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, became the first act from Italy to have two singles in the top-ten of the UK Singles Chart simultaneously with "I Wanna Be Your Slave" at number six and "Beggin'" (a cover of the 1967 song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) at number ten.
Adele also set a new chart record with the single as "Easy On Me" racked up 24 million streams in the UK in its first week of release, the most streams for a song in one week – topping Ariana Grande's record of 16.9 million set back in January 2019 with "7 Rings".
[15] LadBaby made chart history this year when his song "Sausage Rolls for Everyone", a sausage roll-themed parody of Ed Sheeran and Elton John's number-one single "Merry Christmas", and also featuring Sheeran and John, debuted at number-one in the UK Singles Chart on 24 December 2021 (30 December 2021, week ending), giving the Nottingham-born YouTuber and musician his fourth consecutive Christmas number-one single.
The following table (collapsed on desktop site) does not include acts who had previously charted as part of a group and secured their first top 10 solo single.
Songs by Dua Lipa, The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, Glass Animals, The Weeknd ("Blinding Lights") and Russ Millions and Tion Wayne were also in the top ten best-selling singles of the year.