The ninth studio album for U.S. chanteuse Lana Del Rey called “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” becomes her fifth #1 Album in Australia this week.
“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” (Polydor//Interscope) becomes the 971st No.1 Album in Australia (1965 to 2023), the 822nd for ARIA (1983 to 2023), the ninth No.1 for 2023, the 602nd to debut at the top of the Album Charts, plus it’s also the top selling vinyl album this week, and the 38th No.1 for Interscope and the 21st for Polydor, their first since “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (2 weeks from July 30th, 2018).
Lana’s new album also takes the top spots in England (6th #1), Ireland (3rd #1), Scotland, The Netherlands and New Zealand (2nd #1), and here the set becomes her fifth No.1 Album after “Born to Die” (Feb 13th, 2012; No.11 Vinyl this week, LW sitting at No.61 nationally), “Ultraviolence” (June 23rd, 2014), “Honeymoon” (Sept. 28th, 2015) and her last was with “Lust for Life” (July 31st, 2017), all logging one week at the top, with her last chart entry being “Blue Banisters” (HP-3, Nov. 1st, 2021).
Lana Del Rey has now amassed five weeks at No.1 from her five chart-topping albums, tying her with 5 Seconds of Summer as the only other act to have 5 from 5 No.1’s, both now tied at No.82 on the listing for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums (1965 to 2023)’, with fourteen other acts having also landed five No.1 albums during their chart careers, the others doing so this decade were 5SOS, Abba, Ed Sheeran and Delta Goodrem.
With such a long title for the album “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”, its ten words make it the longest titled album to hit No.1 this decade, behind the nine words for Billie Eilish “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” (last at No.1 on Feb 3rd, 2020) and the eight words for Luke Hemmings’ “When Facing the Thing We Turn Away From” (Aug. 23rd, 2021). The longest No.1 Album title belongs to the 18 words for Bring Me the Horizon’s Oct. 2010 set “There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen it. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret” and The 1975’s 16 word set “I Like it When You Sleep. For You Are So Beautiful yet Unaware of it” (March 2016). So for the words of the new No.1 set, ‘know’, ‘ocean’ and ‘there’ have appeared once before, ‘under’ is now scoring a fourth berth, ‘that’ has its sixth time and it’s a first for ‘did’, ‘tunnel’ and ‘blvd.’.
Eleven of the 14 weeks this year have seen the No.1 spot held by American acts (five of those week’s were for Taylor Swift’s “Midnights”), with Lana’s new album becoming the 342nd No.1 for an American Act (solo male or female, duo or group) and the 158th for a Solo Female American artist, with it also the fifth for 2023 after SZA (Jan.), Taylor Swift (Jan. & Feb.), Pink (Feb.) and the last was Miley Cyrus (March) three weeks ago.
The battle for this week’s No.1 Album was between two American acts, as landing at No.2 with his fourth album is Luke Combs with “Gettin’ Old” (No.8 Vinyl), also becoming his fourth Top 10 entry after it’s companion set “Growin’ Up” (HP-2×2, July 4th and 11th, 2022, TW-37), prior to which was his second album and only No.1 (so far) “What You See Ain’t Always What You Get” (1 week on Nov. 18th, 2019, TW-31), while his debut set “This One’s for You” (HP-7×3, peaked March 25th, 2019 and then again on Sept. 19th and Oct. 10th in 2022; entry June 12th, 2017, TW-22), which means that all four of his studio albums are sitting within the Top 40 this week, while he also has four Top 50 singles this week in “The Kind of Love We Make” (#28), and from this new album “5 Leaf Clover” (56 to #32), “Love You Anyway” (104 to #40) and his new albums’ title-and-tie-in track “Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old” (224 to #50).
What could’ve been a chart-first this decade would’ve seen Luke Combs overtake Morgan Wallen at the top of the album charts this week, two country acts back-to-back at No.1 hasn’t happened for awhile, but alas that didn’t occur this week, with the Morgan Wallen album “One Thing at a Time” dropping back down two places to land at No.3, with shows from his recent tour here falling into last week’s chart data, making his drop less harsh, while he also has two Top 20 singles this week, with “Last Night” rising to a new peak of No.2 and “You Proof” jumping twenty places to No.20, plus his album is spending a third straight week at No.1 in both Canada and The U.S.A..
The eighth studio album for U.S. rock act Fall Out Boy called “So Much (for) Stardust” lands at No.4 this week (No.2 Vinyl), becoming their sixth Top 10 and fifth Top 4 album in Australia, with their last entry being “MANIA” (HP-3, late January 2018), in-between then and now they issued their second collection “Believers Never Die: GH Vol.2” (late Nov. 2019) and saw a return at No.94 on Nov. 11th, 2019 for their first volume.
Harry Styles dips two places to No.5 with “Harry’s House” (No.10 Vinyl), followed by single place moves for “Midnights” by Taylor Swift (6 to No.7; No.5 Vinyl), “The Highlights” by The Weeknd (6 to No.7, No.1 Catalogue Album), “SOS” by SZA (8 to No.9) and the second Weeknd set within the Top 10 being “Starboy” (9 to No.10).
The fourth and final Top 10 debut this week occurs at No.8, the third studio album for local singer and songwriter Matt Corby called “Everything’s Fine”, following on from his previous two releases “Rainbow Valley” (HP-4, November 2018) and his debut set “Telluric” (HP-1, March 21st, 2016), with a tour for the album set to start on May 22nd.
TOP 20:
Three of the four Top 10 dropouts land within the Top 20 this week, starting with Miley Cyrus and her “Endless Summer Vacation” (HP-1×1, WI10-2), down seven places to No.11, Pink and her “Trustfall” set (HP-1×1, WI10-5), drops six to No.13 and down eight to No.18 is Harry Styles’ second album “Fine Line” (HP-1×3, WI10-91a).
A 50th Anniversary Edition of the 1973 Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon” was issued recently, which has helped the album to return at No.12 (LW-220, WI100-136), with the vinyl edition landing at No.3 this week, while the album did land at No.68 on January 2nd this year, having returned in the last week of 2022 (Dec 26th) at No.76 due to high vinyl sales (No.12 and No.15 respectively). The return at No.12 is one place lower than the album has peaked on the ARIA Chart, as it’s 20th Anniversary Edition saw it climb to No.11 (on May 9th, 1993), with the set originally peaking at No.2 in late June of 1973 and spending 45 weeks within the AMR Top 10 (WI100-141), totalling it’s overall weeks now into 277 on both the AMR and ARIA Album Charts.
Further Top 20 drops occur for “Dangerous” by Morgan Wallen (11 to No.14), Ed Sheeran’s only Top 20 entry “÷ (divide)” (12 to No.16) only dropping slightly thanks to his new No.6 Singles Chart entry this week “Eyes Closed”, followed by two Taylor Swift albums, one of which was an expanded edition, which helped it to rise last week as ‘The More “Lover” Chapter’ is back down three to No.19 (No.16 Vinyl) and her “1989” set dips three to No.18, while “Heroes & Villains” for Metro Boomin’ drops five to No.20, but it’s single “Creepin'” is up to No.9 this week.
TOP 30:
Taylor Swift’s two Top 30 entries are for “folklore” (on hold at No.23) and “Reputation” (21 to No.28). Ed Sheeran’s drops six to No.25 with his “= (equals)” set, the week that his new album “- (minus)” was announced for release on May 5th, after which is “SOUR” for Olivia Rodrigo, down six places to No.26, it’s second ever week outside of the Top 20 in it’s 97th week chart run and also its lowest chart position too. “AM” for Arctic Monkeys is on hold at No.27 (No.7 Vinyl), while The Weeknd falls five to No.29 with “After Hours” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” continue to persist, down two to No.30 (No.13 Vinyl).
TOP 40:
Luke Combs’ sees two albums within the Top 40 this week, ‘What You See…’ (25 to No.31) and “Growin’ Up” (35 to No.37), with the second six place drop falling into the Top 40 being for Foo Fighters “The Essential” (26 to No.32). Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” falls four places to its lowest ever position of No.33, having only ever been as low as No.31 on three previous occasions during its 157 weeks (3 years + 1 week) on the chart. Eminem’s first collection falls to No.21 this week, while his “Curtain Call 2” drops five to No.35 in its 34th chart week, also its lowest ever position.
TOP 50:
Harry Styles’ self-titled debut album falls down eight places to No.41 (No.14 Vinyl), followed by a first time Top 50 appearance for the album “Aurora” by Daisy Jones & The Six, the TV made band for the show Daisy Jones & The Six, which sees a massive thirty-six place jump to No.42 this week, after having charted 82-96-78 over the past three weeks prior.
“Red (Taylor’s Version)” is back down four places to No.43, after it too was expanded last week as ‘The More”Red (TsV)”Chapter’, which is back-to-back at No.44 with an eight place rise for her “evermore” set. Dropping four places each are the Queen biopic set and Green Day’s GH’s to No.45 and No.46 respectively, while Ed Sheeran’s third and final Top 50 entry this week is his “x (multiply)” set, falling eight places to No.48. The final Top 10 dropout from last week was the No.3 entry for U2’s “Songs of Surrender” set, which departed the Top 50 this week.
FURTHER NEW ENTRY:
* #36 (LP#15) – Memento Mori – Depeche Mode (Venusnote/Columbia) is the electro-pioneer acts 15th studio album, and also now their 15th Albums Chart entry (12 studio, 2 live, 1 Best of), and their first new material since the passing of co-founding member Andy Fletcher in May 2022,as the albums title is latin for ‘remember that you [have to] die’. The band first charted in February of 1982 with their debut set “Speak & Spell” (HP-28×2, peaked May 1982) and have only ever had one Top 10 Album locally, their ninth set “Ultra” (HP-7, May 4th, 1997), while they last charted with “Spirit” (HP-14, late March 2017), which is their equal second highest charted album alongside “Songs of Faith & Devotion” (HP-14, April 11th, 1993). This new set has landed first week at No.1 in Germany, Italy and Sweden, plus No.2 in their homeland of England and No.3 in both Ireland and The Netherlands.
HP = Highest Position
LW = Last Week
WI10 = Weeks in Top 10
WI100 = Weeks in Top 100
*ARIA Chart info is based on sales for the week from the 24th to the 30th of March 2023
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
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Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
