The third album for Adele “25” debuts at the top of the ARIA Albums Chart this week, becoming her second No.1 album and the first album since this week in 2009 where an album has debuted at the top on Platinum sales.
“25” becomes the 751st No.1 album in Australia (1965 to 2015) and the 602nd for ARIA (1983 to 2015), plus the 398th to debut at No.1 and only the third for the XL label, with “21” (from 2-May, 2011 for 32 weeks) for Adele and “Fat of the Land” (13-July, 1997, 1 week) for The Prodigy being the other two. Adele also creates a few new entries on some of my tally sheets too, as now that she has a second No.1 album in Australia, she debuts at No.8 on the ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums’ now having racked up 33 weeks at No.1 (one behind Pink on 34, and one ahead of Jimmy Barnes on 32), and she also jumps straight in at No.1 on the ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: 2010’s, Albums’, far surpassing the 23 weeks that Pink has notched up for this decade.
This is the second album with a “25” in its title to reach No.1, the other was just before the ARIA Charts started from March 1983, Cliff Richard spent three weeks at the top with his collection “25 Years of Gold”. The new No.1 album also becomes the 144th for an English act to hit the top, the last for a female from the UK being the self-titled album for Birdy (3-Sept, 2012), and the album is also the 111th for a Female act to make it to No.1, and the fourth this year after Meghan Trainor, Madonna and Lana Del Rey.
Another feat Adele’s “25” achieves is that it debuts with 2x▲Platinum in sales which is over 140,000+ in sales in its first week (although XL Records released a press release stating it was 3xP), and the last album to debut at the top with a Platinum certification was the last No.1 album of last decade, Susan Boyle with “I Dreamed a Dream” (30-Nov, 2009) which entered with a single Platinum cert, but the two biggest first weeks sales in ARIA Albums history were our first two Australian Idol finalists, as Guy Sebastian and his debut set “Just As I Am” (15-Dec-2003) came in 5xPlatinum first week, and then a few months later runner-up Shannon Noll debuted at the top with “That’s What I’m Talking About” (16-Feb-2004), entering at the top on 3xPlatinum in sales.
Last weeks No.1 debut of “Purpose” for Justin Bieber is down one spot to No.2 and newly certified Gold (●), whilst One Direction’s “Made in the A.M.” is also down one place to No.3 and now ▲Platinum in sales. The top seven albums are all current or former No.1 albums, and climbing back up two places to No.4 is Michael Buble with his “Christmas” album looking to score a fifth year of going to No.1, and current tourist and ARIA Awards performer Ed Sheeran is back down one spot to No.5 with “x”, which is the first album to receive the newly created certification of ♦ Diamond, which is 500,000 in sales. Elvis Presley and his former No.1 “If I Can Dream” drops three places to No.6 and not since July to September of 2011 has Adele had two albums within the Top 10 (it was 21 & 19 back then), as “21” leaps back up twenty-three places to land at No.7 for its 73rd week within the Top 10 and its first appearance in the ten since late June of 2012.
The ninth studio album for Enya debuts at No.8 this week entitled “Dark Sky Island”, and is her first new album in seven years (and two weeks), as her last set was “And Winter Came…” (HP-7, 17-Nov, 2008) and this becomes her eighth Top 10 album in Australia. Dropping one place to No.9 is Taylor Swift with her “1989” album and down three spots to No.10 is “Kylie Christmas” for Kylie Minogue, which didn’t drop so hard this week as she was in the country to promote that album, hand out an ARIA Award for Hall of Fame to Tina Arena, and perform her first duet with her sister Dannii in almost 30 years on the X-Factor Grand Final on Tuesday night for their song “100 Degrees” from the album.
UP: The re-packaged Human Nature set “The Christmas Album” returns to the chart at No.12 this week, now with four extra songs including a duet with Delta Goodrem on “Let it Snow”, whilst one place lower is the first album from Adele “19” which returns to the Top 100 at No.13, giving her three albums within the Top 15 this week. The Ten Tenors climb a couple of places to a new peak of No.16 with their festive album “Our Christmas Wish” and the newly re-packed Meghan Trainor album “Title” (now with extra tracks and a DVD) is back up a couple of spots to No.18. James Blunt sung his classic song “You’re Beautiful” on the X-Factor GF this past week and that has helped his collection “I’ll Take Everything” to jump back up sixteen spots to No.19 and ARIA Award winner Vance Joy sees his set “Dream Your Life Away” climb back up twenty-one places to No.24 this week. Further ARIA winners and nominees that climb are Sia with “1000 Forms of Fear” (72 to 29) and multi-winning and nominated Courtney Barnett with her “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit” (67 to 30), “Thirty One” for ARIA Award winner Jarryd James (49 to 37) and Award presenters and current tourists Rudimental see their recent studio album “We the Generation” return to the Top 100 at No.40. Channel 7 screened the “Prismatic World Tour” for Katy Perry after the XF-GF this week, which helps her album “Prism” to jump back into the fifty (61 to 47) and Dylan Joel leaps back up fifty-one places to No.49 with the recent Triple J Album of the Week “Authentic Lemonade” (HP-28), whilst scoring a new peak of No.50 is “The Very Best of” for Cilla Black.
DOWN: The Weeknd has NO Top 10 entries on either chart this week, as “The Hills” leaves the singles T10, his album “Beauty Behind the Madness” (HP-1, WI10-10) is down ten places to No.20, whilst the other two dropouts from the ten belong to two of last weeks début’s, “Next Step” for Kerser (5 to 26) and the EP for Conrad Sewell “All I Know” (9 to 32). “Like a Version Vol.11” is down nine to No.21, and after leaping back in last week “The Great Unknown” for Rob Thomas is down seven to No.23, with Little Mix dropping fifteen to No.28 with “Get Weird”. Big ARIA Award winners of the night Tame Impala drop seven to No.33 with “Currents”, but it is now certified Gold (●) in sales and should leap back up next week, after which Ellie Goulding and her “Delirium” halve their position from last week, falling seventeen places to No.34, whilst Cold Chisel fall ten to No.35 with “The Perfect Crime”. 5SOS tumble fourteen to No.36 with their second album “Sounds Good, Feels Good” and Slim Dusty with “The Den Tapes” is down twelve to No.39. Now that their tour is over, Florence + the Machine with “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” tumble twenty-seven spots to No.41 and down twenty-eight to No.43 is Jeff Lynne’s ELO with “Alone in the Universe”. Big falls into the lower fifty come from Andrea Bocelli (33 to 51), Sarah Blasko (32 to 52), Boy & Bear (42 to 53), Def Leppard (28 to 58), Andre Rieu (39 to 64), Mumford & Sons (31 to 65), Rod Stewart (48 to 68), Fleetwood Mac’s “G.H. (34 to 74), Tim McGraw (44 to 82) and falling out of the Top 100 from last weeks fifty are Dream on Dreamer (#29), Chris Young (#36), Jackie Onassis (#40) and Logic (#43).
The second album for 2012 X-Factor winner Samantha Jade is entitled “Nine” and debuts at No.11 this week, whilst her self-titled debut set entered and peaked at No.3 the week of 17th December in 2012, spending a single week in the Top 10. Coming in at No.14 is the second collection of hits for Tracy Chapman, her “Greatest Hits” album comes fourteen years after her first set “The Collection” made it to No.10 in early November of 2001. The final Top 20 debut is from local country singer Adam Harvey and is entitled “Harvey’s Bar… The Backyard Sessions” which comes in at No.17 and it becomes his sixth Top 20 album on the ARIA Albums chart.
It’s been almost a full year since Joe Cocker passed away (he died on the 22nd of December, 2014), and to mark the anniversary a new collection of his hits entitled “The Life of a Man – Ultimate Hits 1968-2013” debuts at No.44 this week, whilst the last new entry for the week (and the Top 100) comes in at No.46 and is the soundtrack to the documentary about how Roger Waters made “Roger Waters The Wall” one of the biggest tours of all time.
Lower 50: The self-titled album for Hozier is back up nine spots to No.59, and the self-titled album for Angus & Julie Stone returns at No.63, the double album for Josh Groban of “Stages”/”Noel” jumps up twenty-four spots to a new peak of No.70, whilst the Pentatonix festive season album “That’s Christmas to Me” is back in at No.75. David Gilmour jumps back up twelve spots to No.81 with “Rattle That Lock” and up fifteen to a new peak of No.83 is James Taylor with “The Essential” collection, whilst current tourists Tame Impala see their previous album “Lonerism” climbs back up to No.91.
There are NO new entries in the lower fifty this week, but a tonne of returning albums, including the compilation album “Get on With it Macca” (#85), ARIA Award nominated and performers on the night Hermitude with “Dark Night Sweet Light” (#86) and Flight Facilities with “Down to Earth” (#98), “Two Strong Hearts” for John & Olivia (#93), tourists AC/DC with “Back in Black” (#94) and Ed Sheeran with “+” (#100) and best of sets for Billy Joel with “The Essential” (#95) and Notorious B.I.G. with his “Greatest Hits” (#97).
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
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