Taylor Swift climbs a place to No.1 with “Blank Space”, becoming her third chart-topping single in Australia and her second for this year after “Shake it off” spent three weeks at the top of the ARIA Singles chart back in September.
“Blank Space” becomes the 1026th No.1 single in Australia (1940 to 2014) and the 461st for ARIA (1983 to 2014), plus the song also leapt to the top of the US Billboard charts this week, knocking ‘Shake’ off the top, the first time a female artist has ever done so on the USA Singles chart. This is the first time that the both the words ‘Blank’ and ‘Space’ have been in a No.1 song title and is the third chart-topping single for the Big Machine record label.
The song also becomes the 669th No.1 in Australia for an American artist (‘Shake’ was #668) and the new No.1 becomes the second this decade for Taylor Swift, so she joins the tally of ‘Most Weeks at No.1: 2010’s’ alongside Bruno Mars, who has also achieved two number ones this decade and has so far notched up four weeks atop the ARIA Singles chart, plus she joins twenty-eight other acts since 1940 to have notched up three chart topping singles, including Jason DeRulo, Christina Aguilera, Pharrell Williams, Lady Gaga, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and many more.
So after five weeks at No.1, Ed Sheeran drops back a place to No.2 with “Thinking Out Loud”, the last Male English act to have spent that long at the top of our charts was Passenger throughout all of April 2013 with the track “Let Her Go”.
Released on Monday and recorded last weekend, the Band Aid 30 project is raising money to fight a different issue in Africa, the Ebola outbreak, and the new rendition of “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” debuts at No.3 this week, featuring original (1984) members Midge Ure, Bob Geldof and Bono, alongside current acts like One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande, Ellie Goulding, Rita Ora, Sam Smith, Seal, Olly Murs and Chris Martin from Coldplay amongst the many vocal contributors.
The original version of “Do they Know it’s Christmas” charted the last chart week of 1984 (24-Dec), debuting at No.2 (and held there for three weeks due to chart-holidays {yes they used to halt the chart during the Xmas/NY period}) before going to No.1 in the second weekend of January 1985 for four weeks. The song has charted again under two more versions, with the 1989 rendition reaching No.30 in January 1990 and for the twentieth anniversary version in 2004 the song debuted and peaked at No.9 in mid-December.
The second Top 10 debut at No.4 is from local DJ and musician Will Sparks featuring Wiley and singer Elen Levon with “Ah Yeah So What”, which becomes Will and Elen’s first Top 10 entry, and Will’s fifth Top 100 (third Top 50) entry, same for Elen too (but second Top 50). Will’s previous best effort was the No.22 song “Catch” back in February of this year.
The Hilltop Hoods hold their peak of No.5 with “Cosby Sweater” for a second week and dropping three places each are “Shake it Off” for Taylor Swift to No.6 and “Lips are Movin’” for Meghan Trainor at No.7. Climbing to new peaks are Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding with “Outside” to No.8 and it is now Gold (●) in sales, whilst climbing two places to No.9 are One Direction with “Steal My Girl”, becoming the bands eighth Top 10 single in Australia and their first song to climb into the Top 10 (as opposed to debuting within the ten) since their first two singles “What Makes You Beautiful” (HP-7) and “One Thing” (HP-3), both of which took four weeks to climb into the ten, “Steal My Girl” has taken eight weeks to do so, and is helped by their fourth album “Four” debuting at No.1 on the ARIA Albums chart this week. Sliding down three places to No.10 are David Guetta and Sam Martin with “Dangerous”, spending its fifth weeks within the top ten.
NEW PEAKS & MOVERS: Parra for Cuva and Anna Naklab’s version of “Wicked Games” is up twelve places to a new peak of No.14, charting higher than the original by Chris Isaak which climbed to No.15 in its ninth week on the charts back in late April 1991. Peking Duk and Safia are back up five places to No.17 with “Take Me Over” (HP-15), and holding at No.21 for a second week (third week at this peak overall) are Nico & Vinz with “In Your Arms”, which claims Gold (●) in sales this week. Ariana Grande (with Jessie J & Nicki Minaj) on “Bang Bang” is back up four to No.31, whilst Ariana and The Weeknd jump up thirteen places to a new peak of No.33 with “Love Me Harder”. 5 Seconds of Summer leap back up forty-seven places to No.34 with “Good Girls” (HP-19), thanks to the EP/CD Single of the song out this week. After leaping back into the Top 50 at No.40 last week, Jeremih and YG climb higher this week to No.36 with “Don’t Tell ‘em” and now that the ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’ film has opened around the country (and planet), the theme by Lorde “Yellow Flicker Beat” (HP-33) is back up fourteen places to No.38, whilst Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” is back up nine to No.39 and Katy Perry’s current national tour is pulling her recent Top 20 single “This is How We Do” (HP-18) to climb back up seven this week to No.40.
DOWN DOWN: After sixteen weeks within the Top 10, the current New Zealand No.1 single “Freaks” (HP-3) by Timmy Trumpet & Savage is down four places to No.12, X-Factor winner Marlisa drops seven places to No.13 with “Stand by You” (HP-2) after four weeks within the Top 10, and it also achieves ▲Platinum this week, whilst the final Top 10 dropouts are Echosmith with “Cool Kids” (HP-6), which is down five to No.15 after seven weeks in ten. Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” drops six to No.18 and the new Top 10 UK debut this week (#8) for The Veronicas and “You Ruin Me” is down five to No.19 here. Alesso and Tove Lo dive thirteen places to No.26 with “Heroes (We Could Be)” and Avicii is down nine to No.27 with “The Days”. After leaping into the Top 30 last week, Iggy Azalea with “Beg for it” drops thirteen places to No.42 and Redfoo sees his recent Top 5 single “New Thang” drop fifteen places to No.43, whilst Nathaniel drops thirteen spots to No.44 with “Live Louder”, with further locals Justice Crew and “Rise & Fall” (37 to 45) and Guy Sebastian’s “Mama Ain’t Proud” (32 to 47) both dropping down too. James Blunt with “When I Find Love Again” drops twenty-one places to No.48 and Olly Murs’ “Wrapped Up” is down sixteen chart-places to No.50. Leaving from last weeks Top 50 include AJR (45 to 58), Nicki Minaj (49 to 59), Paloma Faith (41 to 61), Timmy Trumpet (43 to 62), and last weeks highest new entry “The Heart Wants What it Wants” for Selena Gomez (33 to 69), whilst Dean Ray also drops out with “Coming Back” (42 to 74).
Mark Ronson is set to release his fourth album in early 2015 entitled “Uptown Special”, and the first single from the album debuts at No.11 this week entitled “Uptown Funk” and features the vocals of Bruno Mars on the track. This becomes Mark’s sixth Top 100 (and second Top 50) entry, and by debuting at No.11 it becomes his highest charting single in Australia, as his previous best was “Bang Bang Bang” which climbed to No.16 in late July of 2010. As for Bruno this becomes his 17th Top 100 (and 16th Top 50) entry and his first new entry since “Gorilla” went to No.41 in September 2013.
Sam Smith sees the fourth single from his debut album “In the Lonely Hour” (TW-15) enter at No.28 this entitled “Like I Can”, which becomes his sixth Top 100 (and fifth Top 50) entry, whilst the final Top 50 entry this week is new at No.49, One Direction with the next single from their new album “Four” (#1 this week) entitled “Night Changes” which becomes their eighteenth Top 100 (and 13th Top 50) chart entry.
Lower 50: Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” is on hold at No.51 this week, but it also picks up a new certification of 9x▲Platinum, whilst “Chandelier” for Sia jumps back up fifteen places to No.52 and is newly certified 4x▲Platinum, possibly helped by her Graham Norton appearance last weekend and her many ARIA Award Nominations. Milky Chance are back up fourteen places to No.64 with “Stolen Dance” and after sneaking into the Top 100 last week at No.96 Hozier is up thirty places to a new peak of No.66 with “Take Me to Church”. Returning tracks this week include “Rather Be” for Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne (its now being used in a TV commercial here) at No.73, “Smile” for Sheppard (#87), “Animals” by Maroon 5 (#90) and Calvin Harris with “Summer” (#96).
The new EP/CD Single of “Good Girls” for 5SOS also helps a bonus track from the EP entitled “Just Saying” to debut at No.54 this week, whilst new at No.60 is the first entry for brothers Juan and Oscar Salins, who are better known as producers and hip-hop act Play-N-Skillz, who have enlisted the artists Redfoo, Lil’ Jon and Enertia McFly to be on their single “Literally I Can’t”, with the brothers having previously produced music for David Guetta, Pitbull, Nelly, Ludacris and Lil’ Wayne amongst their works.
Nicki Minaj with Skylar Grey debut at No.71 with “Bed of Lies”, which is the fourth Top 100 entry for Nicki this week, as her “Bang Bang” appearance is at No.31, her former Top 10 single “Anaconda” is at No.59 and her recent entry, the ballad “Only” drops thirty-eight places to No.100 this week. The final entry at No.86 is another track from the forthcoming best of for Shady Records entitled ‘Shady XV’, this new track with Eminem, Royce Da 5’9, Big Sean, Danny Brown and Def Loaf entitled “Detroit vs. Everybody”. The two disc set will feature the biggest hits from the record label from the past fifteen years, plus the second CD will contain all new material from label acts. The first song from this compilation was the Eminem and Sia single “Guts Over Fear” (HP-22) back in early September.
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan.
