Australian Albums: Music From The Home Front Keeps Bob Dylan From No 1

On April 25th of this year heaps of acts from both Australia and New Zealand got together to put on a live streamed concert called ‘Music from the Home Front’, screened on Channel 9 in Australia, Channel 3 in New Zealand and YouTube internationally, and now this week the album of music from the 3 hrs, 30 mins show is the new No.1 album in Australia.

“Music from the Home Front” becomes the 884th No.1 Album in Australia (1965 to 2020), the 734th for ARIA (1983 to 2020), the 522nd to debut at No.1, the 22nd chart-topping album of the year (2020) and the third for the record label Bloodlines, whose second was only last week with the Vika & Linda compilation.

The albums 2CD’s and 27 tracks feature acts such as Jimmy Barnes, Ben Lee, The Wiggles, Tones and I, Mark Seymour, James Reyne, John Schumann and Archie Roach, Bliss N’ Eso, Crowded House, Dean Lewis, Paul Kelly, The Rubens, Jon Stevens and INXS’ John Farris, Delta Goodrem with Colin Hay of Men at Work, Vance Joy, Shane Howard, Guy Sebastian, Birds of Tokyo, Vera Blue, Lee Kernaghan, G Flip, DMA’s and James Morrison, with money raised from the concert and album going to Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the frontline workers of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This new No.1 is the second compilation album to go to No.1 during 2020, as back on March 23rd the “Artists Unite for Fire Fight” album topped the ARIA Charts for a single week. This is the first time since 1988 that the ARIA Albums Chart have had two or more No.1 compilations, as there were four in ’88, after which ARIA changed their rules for comps on the mainstream chart to be only those that contained previously unreleased tracks or versions. This week is also the 32nd anniversary of the ARIA Albums Chart becoming independent and issuing its first inhouse chart (27th of June, 1988, Bananarama’s “Wow” was the No.1 set).

This is the 11th album with ‘Music’ in its title to go to No.1 here, the second for this year as Eminem spent a week at the top on January 24th with “Music to Be Murdered by”; while it’s the tenth time for the word ‘From’, the fourth for ‘Home’ and only the third ‘Front’, the other two being for Billy Joel’s “Storm Front” (1989) and Lionel Richie’s collection “Back to Front” (1992). And overall this is the 30th various artists compilation to make it to No.1 in Australia since the first occurred in 1981 (Hitwave ’81, 1 week on 14th of Sept., 1981), and the twelfth on the ARIA chart.

The new No.1 album this week in England, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Norway and Scotland this week is new here at No.2, the 39th studio album for Bob Dylan entitled “Rough and Rowdy Ways”, his first album of new material in eight years (“Tempest” HP-8, September, 2012), having issued three album of covers since then in “Shadows in the Night” (HP-8, 2015), “Fallen Angels” (HP-11, 2016) and “Triplicate” (HP-36, 2017). Overall this is his 16th Top 10 album in Australia since his first in 1966 with “Blonde on Blonde” (HP-4).

It’s once again a 1-2-3 entry to the charts this week, as coming in at No.3 is the third studio album for local act Ocean Alley called “Lonely Diamond”, and by coming in at No.3 it becomes their first Top 10 placing locally, as their only previous entry was with their second set called “Chiaroscuro”, which was issued in March 2018 HP-15,and it scored a new peak of No.11 in February of 2019 after a high JJJ100 placing with “Confidence”.

Stable at No.4 for a second week is the Lady Gaga album “Chromatica”, which is holding the top spot in Canada for a third straight week, after which is the fourth and final Top 10 debut this week, the tenth studio and first self-titled set for Lamb of God, which enters at No.5. This now becomes the American heavy metal acts fifth Top 50 entry here and also their fourth Top 10 placing, having seen their last set “VII: Sturm und Drang” become their highest charted so far, debuted and peaking at No.2 upon entry in early August of 2015.

Down one place each are “Fine Line” for Harry Styles and “When We All Fall Asleep…” for Billie Eilish to No.6 and No.7 respectively, while on hold at No.8 for a third week in a row is the Post Malone set “Hollywood’s Bleeding”. Two of last weeks high new entries gain a second week within the Top 10, with local act Spacey Jane down seven places to land at No.9 with their first set “Sunlight”, while last weeks No.1 entry of “Akilotoa (1994-2006)” for Vika & Linda is this week down nine spots to No.10.

UP:
Rebounding back into the Top 20 this week is the aforementioned compilation “Artists Unite for Fire Fight”, leaping up fifty-three spots to land at No.13. Another local compilation rising is the latest for The Seekers called “Hidden Treasures – Volume 1” (HP-21), which rises thirteen places to No.24. Dean Lewis is back up three spots to No.33 with “A Place We Knew” and Post Malone rebounds four to No.41 with his first entry “Stoney”.

DOWN:
Four albums leave the Top 10 this week, starting with the Dua Lipa set “Future Nostalgia” (HP-1×1, WI10-12), leaving the ten for the first time and down four to No.11. The Weeknd is also out of the ten for the first time as “After Hours” (HP-1, WI10-13) drops down five to No.14 and after nine broken weeks within the T10 the second Luke Combs set “What You See is What You Get” (HP-1, WI10-9a) falls five to No.15, while he is also down six to No.20 with his first album “This One’s for You”. The last Top 10 evacuee is The McClymonts with “Mayhem to Madness” (HP-3, WI10-1), which plummets twenty places to land at No.23.
Ed Sheeran drops down with his two Top 20 entries in “No.6 Collaborations Project” (11 to No.16) and his third set “÷ (Divide)” (13 to No.19), whilst collections for acts falling this week are for Elton John (12 to No.18), Maroon 5 (34 to No.37), Cold Chisel (42 to No.43), Eminem (26 to No.46) and INXS (41 to No.47).
Last week’s entry for Norah Jones and “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” is only down four places this week to No.25, while the four week old entry for Kygo and “Golden Hour” drops twelve spots to No.31. 5 Seconds of Summer tumble down ten places to No.34 with their “C A L M” set, after which the Polo G album “GOAT” tumbles eight spots to No.35.
Drake’s mixtape “Dark Lane Demo Tapes” falls eleven places this week to No.39, while his album “Scorpion” is down two to No.42 and logging its second full year (104 weeks) on the chart this week. Tones and I fell down fourteen spots this week to No.44 with her debut release “The Kids are Coming (EP)”, followed by a six place drop to No.45 for the first Billie Eilish EP “Don’t Smile at Me”. Big drops from out of last week’s Top 50 are for The 1975 (#16), Justice for the Damned (#18) and the Queen GH set (#32).

FURTHER NEW ENTRIES:
* #12 (LP#2) – Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers is the second album and first chart entry for the California native whose first set “Stranger in the Alps” was issued in 2017, and the albums hit single (in America) so far has been “Kyoto”.

* #17 (LP#40) – Homegrown by Neil Young is the fortieth studio album for the Canadian artist since he first charted here in 1970 with “After the Gold Rush” (HP-13), and this set contains material he recorded between June 1974 and January 1975, all up this is his 47th albums chart entry (which consists of 34 studios, 4 Live, 3 comps, 1 soundtrack, 5th archive sets).

* #48 (LP#4) – How to Survive a Funeral by Make Them Suffer is the fourth studio album and also the fourth albums chart entry for the Perth heavy metal act, whose last set “Worlds Apart” was their highest placed so far, peaking at No.29 in August of 2017.

* #50 (GH#10) – JW Winding Back 1970-2020 by John Williamson is a new collection of hits for the local artist, who saw his last best of “His Favourite Collection” make it to No.9 in September of 2016 (around Oz Father’s Day). The boxset to celebrate his golden anniversary contains 25 mini CDs, each disc containing two songs from across the course of his career, plus a new single, while the CD sleeves feature illustrations by John himself depicting outback landscapes.

Written, compiled and researched by Gavin Ryan.

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