Tom Waits Ends Year On Top

With the Christmas holidays just around the corner and the ChartAttack offices going on a much-needed break, this top 50 Chart will be the last of 2006. We at Charty Chart Chat would like to take this time to wish everyone out there many happy returns of the season, and to everyone a happy new year. Let's also take a quick look at some of the highs on the top 50 charts for 2006. The album that spent the most weeks on top 50 chart was Tokyo Police Club's A Lesson In Crime at 20 weeks. The runner-up was The Pink Mountaintops' Axis Of Evol at 19 weeks. The album that lasted at #1 the longest was Islands' Return To The Sea, which spent seven weeks at on top, while The Dears' Gang Of Losers, Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped and Beck's The Information survived at #1 for five weeks each. The highest debut on the chart was a tie between two solo New Pornographers', Destroyer's Destroyer's Rubies and Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which both debuted at #3. Destroyer did the trick Feb. 17 and Neko followed exactly a month later on March 17.

Looking at the top 50 chart this week, Tom Waits' Orphans remains at #1. Swan Lake's Beast Moans stays at #2, while Shotgun And Jaybird's Trying To Get Somewhere jumps up a deuce to #3. The Decemberists' The Crane Wife rises three places to #4. Returning back to the top 10 with a eight-place jump is The Blow's Paper Television at #5, while Joanna Newsom's Ys slides down three places to #6. Immaculate Machine's Les Uns Mais Pas Les Autres EP moves up 10 places to #7, while Pawa Up First's Introducing New Details remains at #8. Hidden Cameras' Awoo drops three spots to #9 and And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's So Divided jumps eight places to land at #10 this week.

As was the case two weeks ago, there is a tight race for the Chart Sizzler Award between a couple of mid-20s entries. The winner is The Winks' Birthday Party at #25, as it edges out Million Dollar Marxists' Zero Culture at #26. Sufjan Stevens' Songs For Christmas enters the charts at #29 and the Killed In Canada compilation debuts at #40.

There wasn't much action on the specialty charts this week as two charts featured the same #1s as last week and two charts had former #1s return to the top spot on their charts. Lady Sovereign's Public Warning remains atop the Hip-Hop top 10 and Mini's Audio Hygiene holds onto #1 on the Electronic chart. Dubmatix's Atomic Subsonic returns to #1 on the World/Folk chart and Mastodon's Blood Mountain returns to #1 on the Metal chart. Only the Jazz/Blues chart has a totally new champ, as Drumheller's Wives moves up a spot to grab the top slot.