The second studio album for family group Sheppard titled “Watching the Sky” debuts at the top of the ARIA Albums Chart this week, becoming the bands first No.1 set locally.
“Watching the Sky” becomes the 826th No.1 Album in Australia (1965 to 2018) and the 677th for ARIA (1983 to 2018), plus the 469th to debut at No.1 and the first for their record label ‘Empire of Song’ (through MGM distribution), plus it surpasses the No.2 debut and peak of their first set “Bombs Away” (2 weeks at #2, July 2014).
This is the fourth time that the word ‘Sky’ has been within a No.1 album title, the previous three were “Blue Sky Mine” for Midnight Oil (2 wks from 11-March, 1990), “Push the Sky Away” for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (1 wk on 25th Feb, 2013) and the last one was “Circus in the Sky” by Bliss N’ Eso (1 wk on 8th July, 2013), notice they’re all local Australian artists too, while this is the first ‘Watching’ at the top, although we did have a ‘watch’ from Susan Boyle in November of 2011 with ‘Someone to Watch Over Me” (2 wks). This new No.1 album becomes the 223rd by an Australian Act to hit the top (solo, duo or group) and the 369th by a Group (local or overseas), plus Sheppard are the 112th Australian act to hit No.1 here (solo, duo or group) and also the 63rd Group (local or overseas), and lastly the fifth Aussie act to hit the top this year after Vance Joy (March), Kylie Minogue (April), Gurumul Yunupingu (April) and lastly were Parkway Drive (May), while it is also the eleventh No.1 album for the year.
Holding steady this week are “Beerbongs and Bentleys” for Post Malone and the first US million selling album for the year in the soundtrack for “The Greatest Showman” (#1 in the UK for a 20th week too) at No.2 and No.3 respectively, while down one spot to No.5 is Ed Sheeran’s “÷ (Divide)”, and his second album “x (Multiply)” is back up three spots to No.10 for its 118th week within the Top 10. Last weeks No.1 debut for Kanye West and “ye” took out the top spot in both America and Canada this week and held for a second week in New Zealand, while here it drops down five spots to No.6. The previous weeks No.1 album for Shawn Mendes and his self-titled third album is down one spot to No.7, while another of last weeks Top 10 debuts holds for a second week in “Hi Viz” for The Presets, down four places to No.9.
There are two further Top 10 debuts this week, and coming in at No.4 is the Kanye West and Kid Cudi collaboration album under their moniker Kids See Ghosts and their self-titled album, which sees all seven songs from the album debut on the singles chart this week, while new at No.8 is the fourth studio album for Lily Allen entitled “No Shame”, which also becomes her fourth Top 10 album here and her first album in four years as she hit No.4 in mid-May of 2014 with her third set “Sheezus”.
UP:
* The first ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ film was screened on TV again last week, with the soundtrack this week back up two spots to No.15, while the second films set rises thirteen places to No.25, with other climbing soundtracks being for ‘Moana’ (44 to 28), ’13 Reasons Why: Season 2′ (45 to a new peak of No.33), ‘Bridget Jones’ Baby’ (66 to 45) and ‘Molly’ (79 to 76).
* With a third Top 50 single from their album, the Vance Joy second set “Nation of Two” rises six places to No.20.
* Pink will be touring here in July, and her “Beautiful Trauma” set rises this week seven spots to No.22
* Each week one of the two charting Taylor Swift albums rebounds, this week its is the older set “1989”, back up ten places to No.23.
* Rapper XXXTentacion is back up eleven spots to No.26 with his “?” set.
* Eminem’s “Curtain Call: The Hits” rises back up six spots to No.30, with other climbing Best of’s being for Queen (GH; 43 to 35, Platinum Collection 74 to 72), INXS (52 to 36), The Wiggles (67 to 63), Maroon 5 (72 to 67), Crowded House (94 to 79), Cold Chisel (85 to 82) and returns for Elton John’s “Diamonds” (#99) and the Fleetwood Mac “Greatest Hits” set at #100.
* Hillsong Worship rise back up sixteen places to No.31 with their latest set “There is More”.
* The Ten Tenors just finished the Queensland leg of their current national tour this past week, and their April 2017 album “Wish You Were Here” (HP-18) returns to the chart at No.40.
* Shawn Mendes’ previous album “Illuminate” is back up seven places to No.43.
* Both of Adele’s albums chart entries climb back up with “25” rising four to No.49 and her previous second album “21” is up five to No.81.
* After tumbling down last week the Justin Bieber set “Purpose” is back up sixteen spots to No.55.
* DMA’s are back up eight spots to No.62 with their current set “For Now”.
* The Weeknd rises back up with “Beauty Behind the Madness” (83 to 68) and “Starboy” (96 to 74).
* Last weeks debut for the self-titled album by Finding Faith is up a couple of spots to a new peak of No.90.
* The fourth and final returning album this week is The Hilltop Hoods “Drinking…Walking…Restrung” set at No.91.
DOWN:
* The biggest dropout this week is for last weeks No.9 entry “God’s Favorite Customer” by Father John Misty” (HP-9, WI10-1), leaving the Top 100 this week, with the three other Top 10 dropouts being the Keith Urban set “Graffiti U” (HP-2, WI10-6), down two to No.12, “This One’s for You (Too)” by Luke Combs (HP-8, WI10-1), falling eleven to No.19 and another of last weeks Top 10 debuts also falling hard is “Prequelle” by Ghost (HP-7, WI10-1), plummeting sixty-two places to land at No.69.
* The soundtrack for ‘Deadpool 2’ drops down nine spots to No.27.
* Parkway Drive slide down five spots to No.29 with their recent No.1 set “Reverence”.
* The Arctic Monkeys drop down nine spots to No.34 with “Tranqulity Base Hotel & Casino”.
* J. Cole sees his recent No.1 album “KOD” fall nine places also, down to No.39.
* Five Finger Death Punch plummet twenty-one spots to land at No.41 with “And Justice for None”.
* A$AP Rocky is down twenty-three places to No.44 with his “Testing” set.
* BTS fall fifteen spots to No.47 with “Love Yourself: Tears”.
* Chvrches see their recent Top 10 album “Love is Dead” fall down thirty-eight spots to No.50.
* With Niall Horan’s national tour now over, his debut set “Flicker” drops back down twenty-five to No.53.
* Gang of Youths drop down sixteen spots to No.57 with “Go Farther in Lightness”.
* The posthumous album for Geoffrey Gurumul Yunupingo and “Djarimirri” is down fifteen places to No.65 this week.
* Pusha T might appear on one track on the new No.4 entry for Kids See Ghosts, but his Kanye West produced album “Daytona” plummets this week fifty-one spots to land at No.73.
* Xavier Rudd sees his “Storm Boy” album blown down forty-six spots to crash at No.77.
* Courtney Barnett is down a massive forty spots to No.80 with “Tell Me How You Really Feel”.
* Last weeks debut for Lauv and “I Met You When I Was 18” drops down twenty-one to No.85.
* The Killers “Direct Hits” drops thirteen places to No.88, while the Fleetwood Mac “Very Best of” drops down sixteen spots to No.89.
* Eminem’s “Revival” logs its half-year mark (26 weeks) and is down sixteen spots to No.93.
* With a new Olivia Newton-John compilation album debuting this week, the Delta Goodrem soundtrack to her biopic “I Honestly Love You” drops down thirty-eight places to land at No.96.
* Other than the Father John Misty album leaving from No.9, the other Top 50 dropout from last weeks Top 100 is the Ben Howard “Noonday Dream” set from No.23.
FURTHER NEW ENTRIES:
* #13 (LP#1) – Lost & Found by Jorja Smith is the debut album for the 21 year old UK singer, the set coming in at No.1 in Ireland and No.3 in England this week
* #14 (GH#9) – Hopelessly Devoted: The Hits by Olivia Newton-John is the ninth compilation of hits for Olivia and is released just after her recent biopic screened here starring Delta Goodrem as ON-J, with this twenty track compilation containing her hits from her 1971 first hit “If Not for You” through to her 1983 single “Tied Up” (nothing newer than that, not even her last Top 5 hit here ‘Twist of Fate’) and it also features her songs from both ‘Grease’ and ‘Xanadu’.
* #37 (LP#29) – self-titled by The Beach Boys with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is the sixth collaboration album between the London based orchestra and a contemporary artist, having done three albums with Elvis Presley, and last year they worked also with Roy Orbison and Aretha Franklin, with this seventeen track set seeing them team with The Beach Boys from their earlier hits like “California Girls”, “Good Vibrations” and “Help Me, Rhonda” through to their fifth and final No.1 here “Kokomo” (1988).
* #58 (LP#9) – The Mountain by Dierks Bentley is the ninth studio album and now fourth albums chart entry in Australia, with his last set “Black” (May 2016) being his highest charted here at No.21.
* #64 (LP#6) – Bigger by Sugarland is the second entry for the US country duo and follows-on from their fifth album “The Incredible Machine” (HP-47), which charted back in November of 2010, so this is their first new material in over eight years.
* #71 (LP#4) – A Dying Machine by Tremonti is the fourth album for the Creed and Alter Bridge lead guitarist Mark Tremonti under his name, with all four albums having charted here from “All I Was” (LP#1, HP-43, 2012), “Cauterize” (LP#2, HP-34, 2015) and his last entry was “Dust” (LP#3, HP-58, 2016).
* #78 (LP#4) – So Sad, So Sexy by Lykee Li is the first new album in four years for the Swedish singer who last charted with her third set “I Never Learn” (HP-38, May 2014) and first charted with her second album “Wounded Rhymes” (HP-30, March 2011).
* #84 (LP#1.2) – Killing is My Business… and Business is Good-The Final Kill by Megadeth is a newly repackaged edition of the heavy metal acts 1985 debut album with an extra ten tracks from the original eight, including demos, live recordings and re-recorded versions, and this is the first time the album has cracked the Top 100, as they first charted here with their fourth album “Rust in Peace” (HP-47, peaked in Nov. 1990).
