Tom Waits' Orphans Thrive Over Christmas

Hello chart junkies. Charty Chart Chat and the ChartAttack charts are back for another year of compiling and chatting about the results. Not much is new outside of a new computer to do some of the work and a new attitude in the year of the Bond (007). This week's charts are a bit of a mish-mash of contributions from stations over the two weeks from Dec. 15 to 31.

Through all of the mayhem of Christmas programming, closed stations and replacement DJs, Tom Waits' Orphans continued to hold on to the top spot of the top 50 chart. Swan Lake's Beast Moans remains at #2, while former #1 The Decemberists' The Crane Wife moves back up a position to #3 and Stolen Minks' Family Boycott jumps back up seven spots to #4. These two upward moves forced Shotgun And Jaybird's Trying To Get Somewhere to drop two places to #5. Pawa Up First's Introducing New Details continues its upward journey to #6. Joanna Newsom's Ys slips to #7 as Woodpigeon's Songbook rises four places to #8. The Dears' Gang Of Losers experiences another resurgence, moving up five places to #9.

Sonic Youth's The Destroyed Room: B-Sides & Rarities debuts at #10 to claim the coveted first Chart Sizzler honour of 2007. The runner-up is The Acorn's Tin Fist EP at #20. It's followed by Serena Ryder's If Your Memory Serves You Well at #26, Tralala's Is That Tralala at #28, As The Poets Affirm's Awake at #32 and Jill Barber's For All Time at #33.

A couple of older albums creep closer to Chart immortality. Shout Out Out Out Out's Not Saying Just Saying moves up 10 places to #23 in its 19th week on the chart, while Hidden Cameras' Awoo stumbles in its 18th week and falls 22 places to #31. Chad VanGaalen's Skelliconnection also survives this week, but slips nine places to #47 in its 18th week on the chart. This is the first time that three albums with at least 18 weeks of service have appeared on the top 50 chart at once. How's that for some really geeky analysis. I know that you just eat this stuff up.

If there wasn't much action on the main chart, there was even less on the specialty charts. Three of them have returning #1s. Mini's Audio Hygiene remains atop the Electronic chart, Drumheller's Wives has dibs on #1 on the Jazz/Blues chart again and Dubmatix's Atomic Subsonic is still the ruler of the World/Folk chart. In the continuing history of tag-you're-it between two albums on the Metal/Punk chart, Amon Amarth's With Oden On Our Side rises a spot to replace last week's #1, Mastodon's Blood Mountain. These two titles have split time at #1 and #2 equally over the past eight weeks. Finally, the only new #1 on the five specialty charts is Hi-Tek's Hi-Teknology 2: The Chip, which reigns supreme on the Hip-Hop top 10.