The just opened soundtrack to the film (on Thursday the 12th) “Fifty Shades of Grey” debuts at the top of the ARIA Albums chart this week, the first ever FILM soundtrack to achieve such a feat.
“50 Shades of Grey” becomes the 724th No.1 album in Australia (1965 to 2015) and the 575th for ARIA (1983 to 2015), and the 43rd soundtrack/cast recording to do so since the first back in 1965 “The Sound of Music” (from 24-April-1965), with the last such album to reach the top spot being “Frozen” (TW-17) back on 5-May-2014. And whilst it is the first FILM soundtrack to debut at the top, it’s actually the fifth such album overall to debut at the top, the other four were all TV Soundtracks, “Chef Aid – The South Park Album” (7-Dec-98), “Songs from Dawson’s Creek” (31-May-99) and then in this decade two from the Glee Cast “Volume 3: Showstoppers” (31-May-2010) and “The Music Volume 5” (21-March-2011).
The new No.1 album becomes the thirteenth for the Universal (direct) label, the last being Ariana Grande with “My Everything” (TW-72), plus it’s the first time that the words ‘Fifty/50’ ‘Shade/s’ or ‘Grey’ have appeared in a No.1 album title, the closest previous being “52nd Street” for Billy Joel (Dec-1978), and this new No.1 already has two charting tracks at the moment, Ellie Goulding with “Love Me Like You Do” (#4) and “The Weeknd with “Earned it” (#29), plus the album also has songs from Annie Lennox, Sia, Beyonce, Vaults, Skylar Grey Frank Sinatra and incidental music from Danny Elfman.
Taylor Swift drops back to No.2 with “1989” after her recent three week run at the top, having notched up nine weeks at the top so far and sixteen weeks within the Top 2 (it has not dropped lower then two), with Sam Smith and “In the Lonely Hour” jumping back up three places to No.3 after he won four Grammy’s this past week. Ed Sheeran with “x”, Meghan Trainor and her “Title” album and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Special” all drops two places each to No.4, No.5 and No.6 respectively, with Meghan picking up a Gold (●) in sales this week too.
The second of three new entries to this weeks’ Top 10 is new at No.7, “Wallflower” for Diana Krall, her eleventh studio album, ninth to chart here (seven studios, 1 G.H. and 1 Live) plus it’s her equal-highest-charting and second Top 10 album and her first to ever debut within the ten. Her previous entry to the ten was “The Look of Love” (HP-7) which took 44 weeks to climb to that peak in late July 2002, and this new album sees her doing covers by The Mamas & Papas, The Eagles, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Elton John, 10CC and Crowded House whilst she teams up with Michael Buble and Bryan Adams on one song each.
Bob Dylan debuts one place lower at No.8 with his thirty-sixth studio album entitled “Shadows in the Night”, which features ten tracks originally recorded by Frank Sinatra during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, including “Autumn Leaves”, “Some Enchanted Evening” and “That Lucky Old Sun” amongst many others. This becomes Bob’s sixth album to debut within the Top 10, in fact he entered at No.8 with his last studio album “Tempest” (17-Sept-2012), and overall it becomes his 21st Top 10 album in Australia since his first “Blonde on Blonde” (HP-4) from October 1966. The remaining albums within the ten are the self-titled album for Hozier down a place to No.9 and falling five to No.10 is Chet Faker with “Built on Glass”.
UP: With One Direction on tour around the country at the moment, their current studio album “FOUR” is back up nine places to No.12, and with a Top 20 hit at the moment in “Linger”(TW-17), Guy Sebastian’s latest album “Madness” jumps back up six spots to No.22. Grammy Award winner for ‘Album of the Year’ was “Morning Phase” for Beck (HP-5, March 2014) which was his only Top 10 album in Australia, and it returns to the charts this week at No.24, whilst the first Ed Sheeran album “+” jumps back up seventeen to No.29. Maroon 5 see their “V” rise eight to No.33 and with a newly re-packaged expanded edition coming this week for Paul Kelly’s “The Merri Soul Sessions”, its back up fourteen spots to No.38.
DOWN: The three Top 10 dropouts this week are Sia with “1000 Forms of Fear” (WI10-6) down four to No.11, “Walking Under Stars” (WI10-17) for The Hilltop Hoods also down four to No.13 and falling seven to No.17 is the “Frozen” (WI10-48) Soundtrack. After leaping back to No.13 last week, Flight Facilities drop five to No.18 with “Down to Earth”, The Veronicas drop a place to No.19 and also pick up a ▲Platinum sales certification, and Triple J’s “Like a Version Vol.10” descends eleven places to No.23. Fall Out Boy plummet sixteen to No.30 with “American Beauty/American Psycho” and dropping twenty to No.36 is Alt-J with “This is All Yours”. Further drops come from The Amity Affliction with “Let the Ocean Take Me” (29 to 41), Marilyn Manson and “The Pale Emperor” (24 to 42), Calvin Harris’ “Motion” (34 to 45), Bethel Music and “We Will Not Be Shaken (Live)” (25 to 46) and Katy Perry’s “Prism” (17 to 48), whilst her “Teenage Dream” is down sixty-one places to No.96, with other big drops into the lower fifty for Banks (23 to 55), Joey Bada$$ (31 to 56), Nicki Minaj (43 to 59), Pond (44 to 63), The Preatures (36 to 65), Nirvana (42 to 78), FKA Twigs (30 to 81), Asgeir (47 to 84) whilst leaving from last weeks Top 100 that were within the fifty are Hellions with “Indian Summer” (#19) and Title Fight with “Hyperview” (#50).
The fifth studio album for US rapper Kid Ink becomes his second and now highest charting album this week, as “Full Speed” comes in at No.15, beating the No.25 peaking of his January 2014 set “My Own Lane”, and this new album has the current charting single “Hotel” featuring Chris Brown (HP-60, TW-77). One place lower at No.16 is the debut album for US five-piece girl group Fifth Harmony entitled “Reflection”, with the girls doing a promo tour here next week.
Roxette start their new national tour here this weekend (14-Feb in Perth), and they’ll be in the country until the end of the month which is possibly why they land two entries this week, firstly coming in at No.20 is “The Roxbox–A Collection of Greatest Hits” which is a 4CD and 2DVD set, plus they also come in at No.52 with another best of set “The 30 Biggest Hits XXX”, which become their fourth and fifth best of collections to chart, they were last on the charts for their February 2012 tour with the set “Hits” which peaked at No.17 in late February.
Neil Finn is in at No.31 with his “iTunes Session” album, whilst Kodaline see their second album “Coming Up for Air” enters at No.37, with their first set “In a Perfect World” having reached No.24 in September 2013 when they toured here. The final two new entries to the Top 50 are The Wiggles at No.43 with their new album “Rock & Roll Preschool” the groups 42nd album and first Top 50 studio album since 2000’s “It’s a Wiggly, Wiggly World” (HP-39, peaked April 2000). Coming in at No.50 is Joshua Tillman formerly of the group Fleet Foxes under the name of Father John Misty, with his second album under than moniker entitled “I Love You, Honeybear”, whilst it’s his first ever entry to the ARIA Albums chart under either name.
Lower 50: One Direction’s tour also pulls their first and third albums back into Top 100, with LP#3 “Midnight Memories” back at No.51 and LP#1 “Up All Night” returning at No.83. Jumping ten spots to No.54 is The Foo Fighters’ “Greatest Hits”, and with the soon to be issued Emeli Sande track with David Guetta hitting radio, David’s album “Listen” is back up fourteen spots to No.61, with Childish Gambino leaping thirty-three spots to No.66 with his EP “Kauai”. The Grammy nominated “Beyonce” album is back in at No.68 and also returning this week is “Legend” for Bob Marley (#82), “LiveSOS” for 5SOS (#98), Justice Crew with “Live by the Words” (#99) and Broods with their debut set “Evergreen” (#100).
The only other new entry within the lower fifty is at No.62, the self-titled album for English super-group McBusted who are supporting One Direction on their current tour here, and the group is made up of three members from the group McFly and two from Busted, thus Mc + Busted = McBusted.
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
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