Joy!

This week, Mandisa earns her first #1 hit on the Christian AC charts with Christmas Day, a duet with evergreen Christian performer Michael W. Smith. Taken off the latter’s Christmas album, it is the first Christian singles chart-topper for the Season Five American Idol finalist. Her previous single, Only The World, the carrier single of Mandisa’s debut album True Beauty, peaked in the top 10 but topped the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart for five weeks.

Add that to the #1 debut of True Beauty on the Billboard Christian Albums and Christian/Gospel albums charts, that brings the number of Mandisa’s number ones to four.

The cherry on the cake is Mandisa’s #2 finish with Christmas Makes Me Cry, a duet with Christian singer/songwriter Matthew West. This is the first time in recent memory - and I’ve followed the Christian charts since I can remember - that one artist has had the #1 and #2 positions on the Christian singles chart.

(Of course, we can expect a huge plummet from the top for Mandisa’s Christmas singles, but maybe she can turn Christmas for herself into what Kimberley Locke has done on AC.)

Further down the chart, Christian songwriter Bebo Norman has five - count ‘em, FIVE - songs out of thirty. Christmas Time is Here, Come and Worship, What Child Is This? Joy to the World, and Go Tell It On the Mountain. Christian rock band Needtobreathe is also on the chart with its version of Go Tell It On the Mountain. Josh Groban barely misses making his first Christian Top 10 hit as I’ll Be Home for Christmas peters out at #12. Casting Crowns’ Away in a Manger, now on the recurrent chart because it was released last year, was played so many times on Christian radio that if it were eligible to chart, would be #1. Man, Christmas does strange things to the Christian chart, doesn’t it?

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