KEY POINTS:
Fat Freddy's Drop has beaten British bore James Blunt for the biggest selling album of 2006.
Last year it was the other way round, with Blunt's Back to Bedlam album just pipping Freddy's Based on a True Story.
Since being released in May last year the album has sold more than 105,000 copies and spent 11 of its 84 weeks in the chart at No 1.
The only other two local albums in the top 20 this year are the Black Seeds' Into the Dojo and Bic Runga's Birds, which was released last year.
These are preliminary end-of-year results and the final chart is calculated in mid-January but Fat Freddy's looks unbeatable.
Despite the lack of local representation in the top 20 it is a good mix of musical styles and youth versus experience. Rock did well, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium in third, with Nickelback's All the Right Reasons, Tool's 10,000 Days, Snow Patrol's Eyes Open and Sam's Town by the Killers also making the list.
The Pussycat Dolls and Justin Timberlake were the top pop acts; Bob Dylan and rockin' Rod Stewart showed they still have gas left in the tank; and Johnny Cash proved there is life after death with his collection Ring of Fire: The Legend of Johnny Cash coming in at No 9.
It's no surprise the year's biggest single was Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, which spent seven weeks at No 1, followed by the Pussycat Dolls' Beep, and local track Bathe In the River, which was composed by Don McGlashan and sung by Hollie Smith, at No 3.
Elsewhere, it was a clean sweep in the best compilations for the Now That's What I Call Music series with volumes 20, 21, and 22 making up the top three.
