With the release of the 2012 End of Year charts this week, I noticed for the first time that a few high charting hits did not make the biggest selling songs for last year.
Reece Mastin: Photo Ros O'Gorman
And this proves a chart fact, that if you burn bright one week and then fall rapidly down the charts, you are not going to be seeing your song on the End of Year listings.
Reece Mastin landed a No.2 with “Shut Up and Kiss Me” (April) and then hit No.1 with “Shout it Out” (July), but both of these songs only lasted a single week within the Top 10 (even the number one), and whilst they both picked up Platinum sales certifications, they did not appear in the EOY Top 100.
The Voice was a huge ratings success for Channel 9, and the availability of buying the tracks right after the shows performances sure made fans buy up the songs in droves, BUT with ten tracks from the show cracking the Top 10, and none of them showing up at the end of the year charts, shows one-week-wonders are great for showing your chart feats, but over the year it doesn’t mean much, with the shows winner Karise Eden landing the highest charting locally released album for the year, but none of her five top ten singles (including a No.1) are within the biggest hits of 2012. This also affected Darren Percival, Sarah De Bono, Brittany Cairns and Lakyn Heperi.
Guy Sebastian had four Top 10 singles for 2012, but only two of them made the best of last years listings, with “Gold” (HP-10) and “Get Along” (HP-5) missing out, the former track debuted and peaked at ten, then fell away, whilst Get Along zoomed to No.5 and two weeks later fell harshly. Also Ed Sheeran scored four top tens last year, and he misses with two tracks too, with both of his No.9 single “Drunk” and “Give Me Love” not appearing.
Whilst Adele did the theme to the James Bond film “Skyfall”, it was all about people buying it first week of release, which helped it to debut at No.5, but the film was six weeks away from being released, so no relevance for people to buy it for several weeks, where it languished in the 41 and 65 until the film came out in late November, and then it rose back into the Top 30. And Delta Goodrem is no stranger to first-week-fame for her songs, and this year proved no different, her return-to-form track “Wish You Were Here” jumped up to No.5, and then after ten weeks in the Top 100 it was gone, although certified Platinum.
For the first time in a longtime, a couple of No.1 albums DID not make the end of year charts, notably Madonna’s “MDNA” (April) which debut at No.1, and then eight weeks later had dropped off the chart. And whilst The Amity Affliction scored their first No.1 album with “Chasing Ghosts”, it fell to No.15 in its second week and by the ninth week had left the charts.
Most of the albums I am about to mention only lasted one or two weeks in the Top 10, and as there were so many Top 10 entries this year, I have only focused on the albums that reached the top five during 2012. Lamb of God with “Resolution” (HP-3), “Old Ideas” by Leonard Cohen (HP-2), “A Different Kind of Truth” (HP-4) for Van Halen, “Port of Morrow” (HP-4) by The Shins and “Nightflight” (HP-2) for Kate Miller-Heidke.
“Little Broken Hearts” (HP-5) for Norah Jones, “Blown Away” (HP-4) by Carrie Underwood, “Spirit Bird” (HP-2) for Xavier Rudd, “Looking for Myself” (HP-3) from Usher, the “Rock of Ages” (HP-4) Soundtrack, “Fortune” (HP-2) for Chris Brown, “There Will Be Love” (HP-4) by Adam Brand and “Four” (HP-3) for Bloc Party. The compilation “Elvis by Request” (HP-4) for Elvis Presley, Timomatic and his self-titled (HP-3) album, “Beacon” (HP-4) for Two Door Cinema Club, “Uno!” (HP-3) for Green Day, “Leave Your Soul to Science (HP-5) for Something for Kate and the return of Robbie Williams with “Take the Crown” (HP-4) all missed out on making the End of Year Top 100.
But with soooo many albums released in 2012 and the speed of which albums fell out of the charts (the average for non-Top 10 albums was around four to five weeks in the Top 100 all up) all added up to a faster moving chart, something which the singles chart used to do all the time, but now the albums does it too.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
