Taylor Swift holds for a second week at No.1 in Australia with her eighth studio album “folklore”, which also holds in England and debuts at the top in both America and Canada.
Taylor’s “folklore” set becomes the sixth album to hold the No.1 slot for a second week during 2020, and that’s as high as the weeks at No.1 for an album that we’ve accrued during the year, no one has yet to go more, and next week’s top contenders might not make it to the top, with new albums coming from Deep Purple, Glass Animals and The Voice 2020 winner Chris Sebastian, so could Taylor become the first act of the year to hold the top spot for three weeks? Taylor’s tally of weeks at No.1 now climbs to eighteen in total, moving her from 35th to now 29th on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums (1965 to 2020)’, just ahead of another 2020 climber in Lady Gaga (18 weeks from 4 #1’s), and if she hangs on here for another week she will amass 19 weeks at the top, matching Madonna’s record here in Australia (as well as The Twelfth Man and E.L.O.).
Coming in behind Taylor at No.2 are Australian duo Hockey Dad with their third studio album called “Brain Candy”. becoming their third Top 100 entry, second Top 10 placing and their highest charted entry, as they’ve previously charted with “Boronia” (HP-55, 2016) and “Blend Inn” (HP-6, Feb 2018). This is followed at No.3 by another Aussie duo in Paul Kelly and jazz musician and band leader Paul Grabowsky with “Please Leave Your Light On”, which is Paul’s 27th studio album, and also becomes Paul Kelly’s eleventh Top 10 album in Australia and his fourth successive year of Top 3 entries from “Life is Fine” (#1, August 2017), “Nature” (#1, Oct 2018) and last years “Songs from the South 1985-2019: Greatest Hits” (#1, late Nov 2019). Eleven of the twelve tracks on the album are reworking’s of Paul Kelly’s songs, while the twelfth track is a cover of the Cole Porter 1944 song “Every Time We Say Goodbye”.
On hold this week are Juice WRLD with “Legends Never Die” and Pop Smoke with “Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon” at No.4 and No.5 respectively, followed by a three place drop for last weeks No.3 entry by local rapper The Kid Laroi and “F*ck Love” at No.6, while the two long-running Top 10 entries are down a place each this week, Harry Styles’ second set “Fine Line” (6 to No.7) and Billie Eilish with “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” (8 to No.9) logging its 69th week within the Top 10.
Around those two single place drops are two further Top 10 entries this week, and new at No.8 is “Wreck Me” for local country artist Travis Collins, his eighth studio album, his fifth Top 100/50 entry and now his first ever Top 10 placing locally, which by coming in at No.8 beats his previous highest entry of his seventh set “Brave & the Broken” (HP-15, late August 2018). New at No.10 is the ninth studio album for Canadian artist Alanis Morissette called “Such Pretty Forks in the Road”, and it’s her first Top 10 placing locally since her 2002 set “Under Rug Swept” (#1 March 2002) and her fourth Top 10 placement here after her breakout third set “Jagged Little Pill (#1×10, peaked March 1996) and “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” (HP-1, Nov. 1998), plus it’s also her first new album in over eight years with her 2012 set “Havoc and Bright Lights” being her last new entry, it debuted and peaked at No.22 (Sept. 2012).
UP:
The Weeknd’s album “After Hours” rebounds eleven spots this week to No.13, while the new No.1 album in New Zealand this week first hit the top there in early March of 1980 (2 weeks in NZ) and mid April, 1980 here (10 weeks in Oz), the fifth studio album for N.Z. act Split Enz and the 40th anniversary edition of their first of three consecutive No.1 albums here “True Colours”, which was re-issued in multiple coloured vinyl editions and while it reclaims the top spot in New Zealand, here it returns to the chart at No.19.
The soundtrack for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is back up five spots to No.29, with the only other climbing film set being for ‘The Greatest Showman’ (44 to No.42). Post Malone’s second set “Beerbong’s & Bentley’s” is also up five spots to land at No.30 and his first set “Stoney” is up six to No.44, followed by an eleven place climb to No.31 for the Billie Eilish EP “Don’t Smile at Me”.
Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” set springs back up eight places to No.35, while the self-titled debut album for Harry Styles leaps back up twenty-there spots to No.38 this week. The INXS (41 to No.39) and Maroon 5 (47 to No.40) collections rise back up, and returning to the Top 50 are the Fleetwood Mac smash “Rumours” (52 to No.46) and Juice WRLD’s “Goodbye & Good Riddance” (51 to No.48).
FURTHER NEW ENTRIES:
* #12 (LP#1) – I’m Doing it by E^ST is the debut album for Central Coast (NSW) based Melisa Bester who goes by the stage name of simply E^ST, with the South African born and Aussie based singer previously issuing four EP’s prior to this first set, one of which charted in the past, her third EP called “Get Money!” which made it to No.96 in 2016, so this new entry becomes her second overall entry and highest charted.
* #19 (LP#5) – True Colours (40th Ann.Ed.) by Split Enz (see above)
* #26 (LP#2) – A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C. are an Irish post-punk five-piece band who met while attending college in Dublin, Ireland and took their name from the Al Martino character he played in the film ‘The Godfather’ (Johnny Fontane) and added the D.C. (Dublin City) after another band in Los Angeles already had the name The Fontaines. This is the band’s first charting album in Australia, as their debut 2019 set “Dogrel” didn’t chart here.
* #34 (LP#1) – What Could Possibly Go Wrong by Dominic Fike is the debut album for American singer and rapper who previously charted with his debut single “3 Nights” which hit No.3 here in early 2018 and was taken from his debut EP called “Don’t Forget About Me, Demos’, while this album doesn’t contain that track it does feature two recent releases in “Chicken Tenders” and “Politics & Violence”.
* #45 (LP#4) – Nothing in Common But us by Tuka is the fourth studio album for the Thundamentals member Brendan Tuckerman from The Blue Mountains (NSW), and this is also his fourth albums charts entry, 3 albums and 1 EP, and his first new solo entry since his EP “Alive, Death, Time, Eternal Sessions (Live)” hit No.80 in March of 2016, while his highest charted entry was his last studio album “Life, Death, Time, Eternal” (LP#3, HP-6, July 2015).
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
Follow Noise11 on Social Media
NEW: Noise11 on YouTube SUBSCRIBE
You’ll discover music news first following Noise11 on Twitter
Comment on the news of the day, join Noise11 on Facebook
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
