Taylor Swift’s “1989” returns to the No.1 spot on the ARIA Albums chart this week after spending the past two weeks at No.2, plus she also maintains her singles No.1 spot with “Blank Space” too, giving Taylor her first dual No.1’s in Australia.
It’s the 120th time that an artist and their album have occupied the top of the Australian charts, and only the second this year, as back on March 17th, “Happy” and its parent album “G I R L” for Pharrell Williams both spent a week at No.1. Another feat that Taylor achieves this week is being only the third album to return to the top of the ARIA Albums chart this year, the other two were “The Very Best” for INXS in late March and Ed Sheeran with “x’ twice in late July and again in early October.
Debuting at No.2 with their self-titled third studio album are The Veronicas, who have now notched up two Top 5 singles from this new album, “You Ruin Me” (late Sept. HP-1) and the new No.5 entry this week “If You Love Someone”. If this album climbs no higher, it will become the twins’ third consecutive No.2 album, as their first set “The Secret Life of…” climbed to No.2 for two weeks in its 27th week on the charts, then their second album “Hook Me Up” debuted and peaked at No.2 in early November 2007. “The Veronicas” also manages to debut on sales of Gold (●) first week.
After a single week at No.1, “Four” for One Direction drops down two places to No.3, helped by their appearance at the ARIA Awards this past week, the album should maintain its position (Top 5) for the next week or so, whilst back up one place to No.4 is Ed Sheeran with “x”.
X-Factor 2014 runner-up Dean Ray sees his self-titled debut album come in at No.5 this week, one place higher than winner Marlisa’s (HP-6, TW-18) self-titled album appeared three weeks ago, whilst landing his seventh studio album at No.6 this week is Guy Sebastian with “Madness”, and by debuting within the Top 10 it gives Guy his eighth Top 10 debut (seven studio and one best of) and his lowest entry since 2009’s “Like it Like That”.
Dropping back four places each are Nickelback to No.7 with “No Fixed Address” and Foo Fighters with “Sonic Highways” to No.8, whilst down two to No.9 are Human Nature with their “Jukebox”, which this week racks up a ▲Platinum sales certification, whilst returning to the Top 10 for it’s twentieth accumulated week is Michael Buble with “Christmas”, up four places to No.10.
NEW PEAKS & MOVERS: As the ARIA Awards were held on Wednesday night, that only left one day of sales for this chart week, but it all helps somewhat for Chet Faker’s “Built on Glass” to rebound fifteen places to land at No.15 this week, whilst the newly re-packed Platinum edition of “Beautiful” for Jessica Mauboy returns to the charts at No.19. Performers and winners on the night 5 Seconds of Summer and Paul Kelly with Neil Finn see both their albums surge back up to No.23 and No.24 respectively, whilst Angus & Julia Stone’s self-titled album is back up twenty-three spots to No.29. “The Christmas Album” for Human Nature is back up sixteen to No.33 and Sheppard’s win for “Bombs Away” helps it to rebound fifty-five places to No.35 and Sia’s “ARIA Album of the Year” win sees “1000 Forms of Fear” back up sixty-one spots to No.37, whilst Dan Sultan’s win for “Blackbird” helps it to jump back up forty-one places to No.39. Finally the soundtrack for “Guardians of the Galaxy” is back up to No.31 and newly certified Gold (●) in sales now that the DVD and BR have been released in Australia.
DOWN DOWN: “The Endless River” for Pink Floyd (HP-3, WI10-2) drops six to No.13 and after one week back within the Top 10, “Prism” for Katy Perry drops back down five to No.13. After forty weeks within the Top 10, the “Frozen” Soundtrack drops down four to No.14 and the final Top 10 dropout is last weeks No.9 entry “King” by Kerser which drops to No.49 this week. Garth Brooks drops ten places to No.21 with “Man Against Machine”, Calvin Harris is down eight to No.28 with “Motion”, Neil Diamond’s “Melody Road” drops nine to No.34 but down fifteen to No.36 are Melinda Schneider and Beccy Cole with “Great Women of Country”. The compilation/tribute album “The Art of McCartney” drops twenty places to No.42 and “Rose Ave.” for You+Me drops sixteen spots to No.45.
The sixth studio album for David Guetta entitled “Listen” debuts at No.11 this week, becoming his third studio album to chart here, but his first NOT to debut within the Top 10, as “One Love” (HP-4) entered at No.7 and then “Nothing But the Beat” (HP-3) came in at No.4, but with plenty of more than the four currently released singles from the album to come, it should climb back up anyway.
Olly Murs sees his fourth studio entitled “Never Been Better” come in at No.27 this week, becoming his second album to chart in Australia, as his previous set “Right Place, Right Time” finally peaked at No.20 in July 2013 after first entering our charts in December 2012. ARIA Award winner Iggy Azalea has re-packaged her ‘The New Classic’ album to feature new tracks and bonus remixes and its now titled “Reclassified”, coming in at No.32, whilst the final Top 50 entry is at No.43, Boyzone with a covers album entitled “Dublin to Detroit”, and its their eighth albums chart entry here (six studio and two best of).
Lower 50: Pentatonix return at No.54 with their festive set “That’s Christmas to Me”, landing a new peak in the process, and the “Jersey Boys” soundtrack jumps back up twenty-four spots to No.67, whilst further returning albums come from The Eagles (#66), Kingswood (#69), ARIA Award winner Kasey Chambers (#85), Chet Faker’s first entry “Thinking in Textures” (#88), Illy (#97), Beyonce (#99) and the ‘Pitch Perfect’ Soundtrack at #100.
A new David Bowie compilation entitled “Nothing Has Changed: The Best of” enters at No.58 this week, becoming the eleventh ‘Best of’ for Bowie that has charted in Australia, the last one being 2002’s “Best of Bowie” (HP-53, peaked March 2004). The deadmau5 compilation “5 Years of Mau5” is new at No.77 and the final lower entry is at No.92, “Sirens” for Ben Abraham, his first ARIA Albums chart entry.
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
