On Friday the 3rd of March Ed Sheeran released his third album “÷ (Divide)”, which this week sees all sixteen tracks from the album enter the chart and land within the Top 40, but the lead singles from the album still occupying the top two spots on the ARIA Singles Chart again this week, with “Shape of You” now having stayed atop the chart for nine straight weeks now.
The nine weeks for “Shape of You” means it becomes the equal 28th longest running No.1 in Australia (1940 to 2017) alongside other former nine-week-hits “Blue (da be dee)” (1999), “MMMBop” (1997), “Macarena” (1996), “The Last Waltz” (1967), “You’re the One That I Want” (1978), “…Baby, One More Time” (1999), “We are the World” (1985, the longest #1 for the 1980’s), “Hips Don’t Lie” (2006) and “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (2007). For this decade it becomes now the equal third longest running No.1, alongside four previous nine-week running chart-toppers in “Sexy and I Know it” (2011), “Roar” (2013), “Que Sera” (2014) and last years “Closer” (2016). Plus Ed has now accumulated up fifteen weeks at No.1 this decade, placing him outright fifth on the list of “Accumulated Weeks at No.1: 2010’s’, one week behind Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ sixteen amassed weeks, whilst the top three exists of LMFAO (19 wks), Pharell Williams (21 wks) and Rihanna (23 wks). One last thing I just noticed too, this is now the longest running No.1 single for not only the Asylum or Atlantic labels, but for the Warner group (including Elektra, WEA, Warner {direct}, East West, Atlantic, Asylum and Sire).
So after two weeks at No.3, Ed’s “Castle on the Hill” rises back up to it’s former entry and peak position of No.2 for a seventh non-consecutive week, whilst last weeks No.2 debut for The Chainsmokers and Coldplay with “Something Just Like This” drops down a place to No.3. There are 18 new entries to the Top 100 this week, and the first and last of those newbies are NOT by Ed Sheeran. The highest new entry (and new NZ No.1 single) is the first track lifted from the June 16th second album for Lorde entitled “Melodrama”, the single is called “Green Light”, and it debuts at No.4 this week, becoming her second Top 10 single in Australia, as her EP “The Love Club” (feat “Royals”) climbed to No.2 for two weeks in August of 2013.
Half of the Top 10 this week are Ed Sheeran songs from his third album “÷ (Divide)”, with three songs from the set debuting within the ten. The highest of those is the ballad “Dive”, which enters at No.5, followed at No.6 by “Perfect”, whilst the new No.1 single in Ireland this week is the No.10 entry here, the Irish-infused “Galway Girl”, which now gives Ed seventeen Top 10 singles in Australia, plus he beats the four within the Top 10 from June 2012 which was achieved by Karise Eden just after her Voice win, and four by Michael Jackson in mid-July 2009 (after his passing) by landing five singles within the Top 10.
Last week Kygo and Selena Gomez leapt to No.4 with their collaboration “It Ain’t Me”, which drops down three spots this week to No.7, whilst Julia Michaels’ “Issues” also slump two places to land at No.8. Zedd and Alessia Cara jump up seven places to land at No.9 with “Stay”, which becomes Alessia’s second Top 10 single, and the third for Zedd, although this is the first time that Zedd has lead on a Top 10 single, as his two previous visits were as a guest artist, “Break Free” for Ariana Grande (HP-3, July 2014) and “Starving” by Hailee Steinfeld (HP-5, Oct 2016).
UP:
* Bruno Mars leaps twenty-six places to No.14 with “That’s What I Like”, becoming his sixteenth Top 20 single in Australia.
* Jax Jones is on hold this week at No.23 with the dance track “You Don’t Know Me” featuring Raye.
* Current tourist here Adele is also on hold at her peak of No.30 with “Water Under the Bridge”. This tour also helps her lower down the charts too, as climbing up are “Hello” (69 to 65), “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)” (74 to 69), “Someone Like You” (95 to 82), and she returns to the Top 100 with “Rolling in the Deep” (#90), and “When We Were Young” (#92), giving her six songs on the chart this week
* Justin Bieber just started his national tour here this past week, and climbs with “Sorry” (94 to 89) and re-enters the Top 100 at No.98 with “Love Yourself”.
DOWN:
* The first of five songs leaving the Top 10 this week is the ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ lead single for Zayn and Taylor Swift on “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” (HP-3×3, WI10-12), which is down six places to No.11, followed by Katy Perry and Skip Marley with “Chained to the Rhythm” (HP-4, WI10-3, now Gold (●) in sales), falling five to No.12. “Paris” (HP-4, WI10-7) for The Chainsmokers is down seven to No.15 and after only entering the ten last week, the Jon Bellion track “All Time Low” (HP-9, WI10-1) drops eight to No.17, whilst the final Top 10 exit goes to Pnau and their “Chameleon” (HP-4, WI10-7), which descends twelve places to No.22 this week.
* The Calvin Harris and Frank Ocean entry from last week in “Slide” does just that, drop down six spots to No.18.
* The Snakehips and MØ collaboration “Don’t Leave” drops eight places to No.21 this week.
* The second and final Gold (●) certification of the week goes to Martin Garrix and Dua Lipa with “Scared to Be Lonely”, which is down eight spots to No.25.
* Three songs dropping out of the Top 20 with double digits are “Adore” by Amy Shark (15 to 26), “Touch” by Little Mix (14 to 27) and “Rockabye” for Clean Bandit (18 to 28).
* Starley drops thirteen places to No.33 with “Call on Me”.
* Whilst Andy Grammer is down fifteen spots to No.34 with his not so “Fresh Eyes”.
* The Weeknd and Daft Punk drops fourteen places to No.35 with “I Feel it Coming” and their other teaming in “Starboy” is down fifteen spots to No.43.
* Both falling sixteen places are “Love$ick” by Mura Masa and “Capsize” for Frenship, falling to No.40 and No.41 respetively.
* Last week “Cold” for Maroon 5 and Future peaked at No.27, now this week it falls fifteen spots to No.42.
* Sage the Gemini just released new remixes for “Now and Later”, but nationally it falls eighteen spots to No.44.
* Down seventeen places to No.46 are “Bad Things” for Machine Gun Kelly and Camila Cabello.
* Further tumbling tracks are “Stranger” for Peking Duk (31 to 50), “Play That Song” by Train (34 to 53), “Human” by Rag’N’Bone Man (42 to 59), “24k Magic” by Bruno Mars (47 to 60), “Just Hold on” by Steve Aoki & Louis Tomlinson (48 to 64), “Heavy” by Linkin Park and Kiiara (43 to 66) and “Love” by Lana Del Rey (49 to 85).
* Still holding onto the title for longest charted track is Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”, down three places to No.76 and racking up its 118th week within the Top 100.
NEW Ed Sheeran:
Back in 1984 it was amazing to see seven singles lifted from an album of only nine tracks, and that they also all made into the Top 100 chart. I am talking about the Michael Jackson “Thriller” album, which between November 1982 and April of 1984 saw seven singles make the chart (six hit the Top 50, “Human Nature” peaked at No.64). Then Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” did the same thing again between May 1984 and December 1985, this time all seven singles cracked the Top 50.
Most recently since the digital age of charts has been around, when a new album came out by a major artist, many of the tracks from the album will also chart, and then eventually become official charting singles later on down the albums life, like Lady Gaga, One Direction, Taylor Swift, Adele and even last years “Lemonade” for Beyonce, which saw seven of the twelve tracks from the album enter the chart (2nd May, 2016), and even Ed Sheeran’s last album “+ (Positive)” saw a few tracks enter.
This week the entire sixteen tracks of Ed’s third album “÷ (Divide)” land not only within the Top 100, but also within the Top 40. He is already charting at No.1 and No.2 with the albums first two entries “Shape of You” (TW-1) and “Castle on the Hill” (TW-2), and then three weeks ago we saw “How Would You Feel (Paean)” (TW-13) debut at No.2, and now the remaining thirteen tracks from the set have entered, with the aforementioned entries of “Dive” (#5), “Perfect” (#6) and “Galway Girl” (#10).
These are followed by “Happier” (#16), “Supermarket Flowers” (#19) and “New Man” (#20), meaning he has nine songs within the Top 20, also beating the eight entries Michael Jackson placed within the Top 20 in July of 2009 just after his passing. Further down we see “What Do I Know?” (#24), “Eraser” (#31), “Heart’s Don’t Break Around Here” (#32), “Barcelona” (#36), “Nancy Mulligan” (#37), “Save Myself” (#38) and finally “Bibia Be Ye Ye” (#39), which again beats the 15 Top 50 entries for MJ. And with Ed having two of his older songs down in the lower fifty in “Thinking Out Loud” (#76) and “Photograph” (#88), overall he has eighteen songs in the Top 100 this week. It doesn’t beat the 30 entries that Michael Jackson had in the week after his passing in July 2009 though.
NEW ENTRY:
* #87 – Congratulations by Post Malone feat Quavo, is the first chart entry here for the US rapper born Autin Richard Post, and is taken from his December 2016 released debut album “Stoney”.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
