December 31, 2019

55 hits created 52 weeks of Top 10 Christian hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay. Here it is – my Top 19 hits of 2019:

“Nobody (But Jesus)” – Casting Crowns Ft. Matthew West [peaked at # 1 for 7 weeks]
“Church (Take Me Back)” – Cochren & Co. [# 1 for 4 weeks]
“Fear No More” – Building 429 [# 1 for 6 weeks]
“Dead Man Walking” – Jeremy Camp [# 1 for 4 weeks]
“Born Again” – Austin French [# 1 for 3 weeks]
“Confidence” – Sanctus Real [# 1 for 5 weeks]
“Maybe It’s OK” – We Are Messengers [# 1 for 3 weeks]
“Greatness Of Our God” – Newsboys [# 1 for 1 week]
“Raise A Hallelujah” – Bethel Music [# 1 for 4 weeks]
“Red Letters” – Crowder [# 1 for 2 weeks]
“Resurrecting” – Elevation Worship [# 3 for 4 weeks]
“Prize Worth Fighting For” – Jamie Kimmett [# 1 for 2 weeks]
“I’m Gonna Let It Go” – Jason Gray [# 3 for 2 weeks]
“Burn The Ships” – for King & Country [# 2 for 1 week]
“Alive” – Big Daddy Weave [# 1 for 4 weeks]
“Is He Worthy ?” – Chris Tomlin [# 2 for 2 weeks]
“Nobody Loves Me Like You” – Chris Tomlin [# 1 for 4 weeks]
“Till I Found You” – Phil Wickham [# 2 for 3 weeks]
“My Feet Are On The Rock” – I AM THEY [# 2 for 1 week]

# 1 Of 2018:
“Do It Again” – Elevation Worship

# 1 Of 2017:
“Broken Things” – Matthew West

What a great year for positive and encouraging music that tells the story of God. What a great chart to represent His music.

“Nobody (But Jesus)” is no surprise at # 1. It’s been in my Top 3 for the past 20 weeks in a row, and that’s # 1 for 7 weeks, # 2 for 9 weeks, and # 3 for 4 weeks. This week it also becomes the # 1 smash in the entire 150-week history of this current era of my chart.

There were some surprises further down the chart. I forgot how big “Church (Take Me Back)” was from February to July. I loved that song, and then K-LOVE all but abandoned it after that. We haven’t heard from Cochren since then.

“Alive” from Big Daddy Weave should have been a bigger hit than it was. It spent 12 weeks on my chart – 4 of them at # 1 in April and May – but again K-LOVE stopped playing it after that. As this chart is influenced by radio airplay it quickly dropped off of my chart after its run at # 1. A few months later K-LOVE started playing it again – perhaps more so than they did originally when it was actually a hit nationally on Christian radio.

Finally my # 19 hit of 2019 is actually one of my favorite songs of the year. I still get excited with joy whenever I hear “My Feet Are On The Rock” on the radio and on my iPod Shuffles. Nationally it was a Top 15 hit on Christian radio during the Summer of 2018, but K-LOVE didn’t start playing it until February of 2019, and they played it for a couple of months as if it were new. (Well it was new to me.)

It sounds like I’m a little bit critical of K-LOVE after 150 weeks of listening, but really it’s still the greatest radio station of my lifetime. It’s not perfect. If I could change one thing about it I’d tweak the currents-to-recurrents ratio to be closer to 50-50. In other words play a few more current hits (expand the playlist a bit), and play a few less recurrent hits (of the past 10 years) in a typical hour. Also don’t suddenly abandon your hits. Keep playing them, but gradually play them less often over a period of time as they evolve into recurrents.

Casting Crowns, Matthew West, Austin French, Elevation Worship, and Chris Tomlin appear in my Top 19 of 2019, and they also appeared in my Top 18 of 2018. Casting Crowns, Matthew West, and Chris Tomlin also appeared in my Top 17 of 2017 (which was never published online).

An interesting tidbit for Chris Tomlin’s # 1 smash “Nobody Loves Me Like You”: It was my # 17 hit of 2019, and it just barely missed my Top 18 of 2018. (It was # 19.) It straddled both years almost evenly.

My Top 19 Of 2019 chart was compiled by awarding 10 points for each week at # 1, 9 points for # 2, and so forth and so on down to 1 point for # 10. The points are then added, and the hits are ranked.

There were 15 # 1 hits in 2019, and 2 of them failed to make my Top 19 – “Well Done” (The Afters) and “Unstoppable God” (Sanctus Real). They were the first and last # 1 hits of the year respectively.

This concludes another weekend of blog posts. I’ll do it again next weekend – with 4 new entries on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday. I don’t blog on Saturdays. That’s my day of rest.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. I’m also on Twitter @ChrisMDay, and I’m the man behind the tweets for my church @LivingWatersHFL.

Happy New Year my friends ! May the God of hope fill you completely with joy and peace as you trust in Him.