Chart At A Glance

• Looks like 2012 is going out with a bang on my chart!
• Closely following on the heels of Third Day’s rocket-fast rise to #1 with “I Need A Miracle”, is a most-unexpected surprise in this slowest ever year on my chart…a #1 debut!
• Violinist and YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling debuts at the top with her beautiful rendition of “What Child Is This”, setting and breaking a number of records on my chart in the process.
• First, it is now the latest new #1 in a chart year, a record previously held by Disciple’s “Things Left Unsaid” for 5 years. It is also the first Christmas song to ever debut at #1, as well as only the second Christmas song to ever reach #1 at all (Joy Williams’ “Here With Us” was the first way back on Chart #122 in April 2006, oddly).
• More importantly, it is the first instrumental song to ever debut on my Top 50, and it only debuted due to me relaxing a long-standing rule, that songs have to be current or recent radio singles. This song is officially a “digital single”, a category now eligible for entry onto my Top 50. Perhaps in 2013, we’ll see a slightly broader range of songs debut on my chart (and hopefully many more songs overall than this year’s dismal record-low number).
• Lindsey Stirling may have the week’s biggest story, but she is not the only one! Further down, Erica Lane newly peaks at #14 with “Angels In The Snow”, the Jump Of The Week once again. And, even further down, 2 other Christmas songs come aboard, altogether making for 3 final debuts in 2012.
• Mandisa debuts at #37 with “Somebody’s Angel”, while Francesca Battistelli enters at #48 with “Heaven Everywhere”. Another of her songs, “Christmas Is”, narrowly misses a Top 50 debut.
• Finally, a couple songs reach special charting milestones. First, one-hit wonder “Like I Mean It”, by Stars Go Dim, reaches its 100th week charting this week. Second, and much more significantly, Josh Groban reaches the landmark 300-week milestone with “You Are Loved”, only the third song to do so in the history of my chart. If it can hang on for another year, it will come within striking distance of overtaking Jeremy Camp’s record for the longest-charting song (368 weeks with “Walk By Faith”).
• Well, this about wraps up 2012 on my regular Top 50! Stay tuned for my Christmas Top 50 on next week’s chart, and my year-end Top 100 the week after. My regular weekly Top 50 will be frozen those last 2 weeks of the year.

Top 50