Taylor Swift debuts at the summit of the ARIA Albums Chart this week with her reworked second album “Fearless (Taylor’s version)”, becoming her eighth No.1 Album in Australia.
“Fearless (Taylor’s version)” is the 913th No.1 Album locally (1965 – 2021), the 763rd for ARIA (1983 – 2021), the 549th to debut at the top, the 13th No.1 album for 2021, and now the 17th for the record label Republic, plus their third in a row by Taylor herself, as this is her third No.1 album in eight months having spent four weeks at the top in both August of 2020 with “folklore” and mid-December 2020 to mid-January 2021 with “evermore”.
With this new No.1 becoming Taylor’s eighth chart-topping album she is now equal fifth on the list for ‘Most No.1 Albums: 1965 – 2021’ alongside last year’s eighth No.1’ers Foo Fighters and also Pearl Jam are on eight. Taylor also becomes now the second highest ranked Solo Female Artist with the most No.1 Albums behind Madonna’s eleven. She also moves up on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums 1965 – 2021’ from 20th to now 18th just behind U2 (25 weeks with 11 #1’s) and just ahead of The Rolling Stones (25 weeks, 7 #1’s) and Savage Garden (25 weeks, 2 #1’s).
The original “Fearless” album for Taylor Swift peaked at No.2 on March 23rd, 2009 and again on April 20th, 2009, so this is the albums first turn in the No.1 spot here, and it’s also the first time that the word ‘Fearless’ has appeared in a No.1 album title, with two previous ‘Fear’ infused albums at No.1 being “Fear Inoculum” for Tool (1 week on Sept 9th, 2019) and Sia’s “1000 Forms of Fear” (1 week on July 14th, 2014). This new No.1 album has also debuted at the top in England and New Zealand, and here it also becomes the 322nd No.1 Album by an American Artist (solo, duo, group, male or female) and the 140th by a Solo Female Artist (local or overseas).
The chart feat of scoring three No.1 albums in less than a one year period has been done once before in Australian Albums Chart history, when The Beatles dominated the charts in their third year of charting locally, after the Beatlemania of 1964, the first Australian Albums chart show that they had the first, third and fifth No.1 albums in Australia, all occurring between the first chart in January 1965 to September of 1965 when their second soundtrack “Help!” began an eleven week run at the top. Below are some of the other acts who’ve almost managed this achievement, the only recent acts would be Robbie Williams and One Direction, and the only act to maybe outdo Taylor so far is Elton John with four No.1 albums between March 1974 and June of 1975, so unless she does another ‘Taylor’s version’ album sometime this year, she might just be ending this chart feat.
Abba (Dec 1975 to Nov 1976) 3 #1’s
Beatles (3 in 1965)
Beatles Oct (1969 to June 1970) 3 #1’s
Bee Gees (March 1978 to Dec 1979) 3 #1’s {includes ‘Saturday Night Fever’ soundtrack}
Neil Diamond (May 1973 to Dec 1974 3 #1’s
Elton John (March 1974 to June 1975) 4 #1’s
One Direction (April 2012 to Dec 2013) 3 #’1s
The Police (Feb 1980 to Dec 1981) 3 #1’s
Split Enz (April 1980 to June 1982) 3 #’1s
Rod Stewart (Nov 1975 to Nov 1977) 3 #1’s
Robbie Williams (Oct 2004 to Oct 2006) 3 #1’s
After it’s second week at No.1 last week the latest Justin Bieber album “Justice” is back down one place to No.2, while it spends a third week at the top in his home country of Canada and returns for a second overall week at No.1 in America. This is followed by a No.3 entry for the sixteenth studio album for Australian artist Richard Clapton called “Music is Love (1966-1970)”, which is a fifteen track covers album of songs from that time period including “Summer in the City”, “Riders on the Storm”, “For What it’s Worth”, “Love the One You’re With” and “Woodstock”. And by coming in at No.3 it becomes Richard’s highest charted album since he first charted with his second album in 1975 in “Girls on the Avenue” (HP-33), plus this is his first ARIA Top 10 album and second overall locally, having only ever hit the Top 10 with his seventh album “The Great Escape” (HP-8, 1982, AMR), plus this album’s vinyl edition is the third highest selling this week too.
Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” album is down two places to No.4 this week, followed by an eighteen place leap to No.5 for the latest Ariana Grande album “Positions” (23 to No.5), thanks to the albums vinyl release last week, this week it is the top selling vinyl album, and spending its ninth overall week within the Top 10.
American rap act Brockhampton land the third and final Top 10 debut this week with their sixth studio album “Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine” coming in at No.6, which becomes their third Top 10 and chart entry after “Iridescence” (LP#4, HP-6, Oct 2018) and “Ginger” (LP#5, HP-3, Sept 2019). The three high new entries push down last weeks other Top 10 albums which were “Fine Line” for Harry Styles (5 to No.7), The Weeknd with “The Highlights” (3 to No.8), The Kid Laroi’s mixtape and EP (4 to No.9) and the Pop Smoke set “Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon” (6 to No.10).
UP:
TOP 20: With five albums within the Top 50 this week, Taylor Swift rises with her three of her four older entries, two of which are within the Top 20 in her last album “evermore” (15 to No.12) and it’s predecessor “folklore” (stable at No.16). And thanks to having the No.4 selling vinyl album this week the self-titled Harry Styles debut album is back up six places to No.20, it’s first time back within the Top 20 since August 28th, 2017 when it spent it’s last week within the twenty at No.18.
TOP 30: Taylor’s “1989” album rebounds four spots to No.24, while The Wiggles “We’re All Fruit Salad: Greatest Hits” jumps back up eleven spots to No.26 (the albums DVD equivalent came out in the first week of April). Bruno Mars’ “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” album jumps up again this week, rising a massive seventeen places to No.27, while making a bigger rise is the last One Direction album “Made in the A.M.”, rebounding twenty-four spots to No.29.
TOP 40: The third of the four Taylor rises is her seventh album “Lover”, which is only up two spots to No.34, and it is the only rising album within this chart region.
TOP 50: The second One Direction album to return to the Top 50 is their set “Four”, up forty-two places this week to land at No.42. Also moving back into the fifty are Machine Gun Kelly with “Tickets to My Downfall” (51 to No.48) and thanks to a No.4 singles chart debut this week the Polo G album “The Goat” jumps up seventeen chart rungs to land at No.49.
DOWN:
TOP 20: Two of the four Top 10 dropouts land within the Top 20 this week, with Billie Eilish down four spots to No.11 with “When We All Fall Asleep…” (HP-1×6, WI10-83a) and “Rumours” for Fleetwood Mac (HP-1×8, ARIA.WI10-5a), which drops four places to No.14. Elton John’s “Diamonds” collection drops back down four to No.15 and Luke Combs’ “What You See is What You Get” dips three to No.17.
TOP 30: Morgan Wallen is down three to No.23 with “Dangerous”, with the recent Lana Del Rey set “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” tumbling thirteen places to No.25.
TOP 40: The third Top 10 dropout is last week’s entry for Lil’ Tjay and “Destined 2 Win” (HP-9, WI10-1), which falls twenty-two spots to No.31, while also tumbling into the Top 40 are “The Bitter Truth” by Evanescence (17 to No.36) and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ soundtrack (24 to No.37), with smaller falls for the ‘Hamilton’ cast recording (34 to No.39) and Sam Smith’s “Love Goes” (33 to No.40).
TOP 50: Last week’s highest entry for Demi Lovato and “Dancing with the Devil… The Art of Starting Over” (HP-8, WI10-1) drops down this week thirty-seven places to land down at No.45. The INXS “Very Best of” set drops fourteen places to No.41, “?” for XXXTentaction dips five to No.43 and Doja Cat’s “Hot Pink” set drops seven places to No.46.
FURTHER NEW ENTRY:
* #38 (Live#1) – Nearest Misses (Live) by Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes (Social Family Records) is the first albums chart entry for the Melbourne based alt-country trio, who’ve previously released three studio albums between 2009 and 2015, with this material recorded live during 2018.
*ARIA Chart info is based on sales for the week from the 9th to the 15th of April, 2021.
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
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Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
