Returning to the top for a 22nd week at No.1 is the third album for Ed Sheeran and “÷ (Divide)”, giving it an eighth berth at the top of the ARIA Albums Chart.
“÷ (Divide)” sold enough during the Xmas-NY’s period to knock off last weeks debut for Eminem, and it’s 22nd week at No.1 now takes Ed’s overall tally at No.1 here to 31 weeks, moving him up on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums; 1965 to 2018′ to outright twelfth, one week shy of the 32 weeks racked up by both Michael Buble and Delta Goodrem, and putting him now ahead of both Elton John and Michael Jackson’s 30 weeks. Ed Sheeran also occupies both No.1’s in Australia this week, his second time after performing the feat between March and May with “Shape of You” and the album, plus this is the second time that both “Perfect” and “÷ (Divide)” have occupied the top too, it first occurred back on December 18th.
Pink stays at No.2 with her “Beautiful Trauma” album while last weeks No.1 debut for Eminem and “Revival” drops back down two places to land at No.3. Also on hold at No.4 is Michael Buble and his “Christmas” album, whilst swapping places at No.5 and No.6 are Taylor Swift with “Reputation” up one to No.5 and down a place to No.6 is “Friends for Christmas” for John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John. Sam Smith is back up one more spot this week to No.7 with “The Thrill of it All” and also on hold at No.9 is the soundtrack for “The Secret Daughter Season 2” by Jessica Mauboy. The 26th of December saw the release here for the new Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron film “The Greatest Showman”, which sees its soundtrack leap up sixty-nine places to land at a new peak of No.8 this week, whilst returning to the Top 10, up one spot to No.10, is the Paul Kelly set “Life is Fine” for a tenth broken week within the Top 10.
UP:
* With three songs within the Top 50 this week, the Imagine Dragons album “Evolve” is back up six places to No.15.
* The INXS collection “The Very Best” is back up six places to No.18, with other climbing GH’s from Cold Chisel (32 to 24), Paul Kelly (37 to 25), Fleetwood Mac (Very Best of 51 to 43), The Eagles (57 to 47), Guns N’ Roses (60 to 48), Fleetwood Mac (GH 84 to 60), The Killers (95 to 68), Foo Fighters (84 to 60), Crowded House (82 to 61), Red Hot Chili Peppers (85 to 62), Cat Stevens (70 to 64), Roy Orbison (79 to 66) and ABBA (88 to 81).
* Ed Sheeran’s “x” is back up six places to No.19, whilst his “+” set also rises six spots to No.27.
* Last week The Foo Fighters jumped back up to No.26 with “Concrete and Gold”, which this week rises again, up four spots to No.22.
* The soundtrack for ‘Guardians Vol.1’ is back up eight spots to No.26, with other soundtracks rising from ‘Pitch Perfect 3’ (48 to new peak of No.36) and ‘Stranger Things’ (64 to a new peak of No.51).
* Eminem’s new album might have fallen a little this week, but his two other entries within the Top 100 both rise, with “Curtain Call: The Hits” up six to No.30 and “The Eminem Show” is up twenty-eight spots to No.72.
* Lorde and her second album “Melodrama” are up nine spots to No.32.
* After plummeting last week, the Khalid album “American Teen” is back up six to No.41.
* Kendrick Lamar and his “DAMN.” album are back up ten spots to No.45.
* With George Michael’s one-year anniversary of passing occurring during this sales week, he has two albums within the Top 100 this week, “Listen with Prejudice Vol.1″/”MTV Unplugged” is back up seven places to No.56, and his collection “Twenty Five” returns at No.82.
* The Killers album “Wonderful Wonderful” is back up fifteen places to No.65.
* There’s a nine place rise for the Platinum edition of “Glory Days” by Little Mix to No.69.
* After tumbling for the past few weeks the Maroon 5 album “Red Pill Blues” is back up sixteen spots to No.74.
* Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” is back up fourteen spots to No.77.
* There are NO new entries this week, but nine returning albums, with the aforementioned George Michael 25 set being one, with The Beatles “Sgt. Peppers” back in at No.78, “The Singles” for Phil Collins (#86), “GH” for Tom Petty (#89) and Green Day (#91), “Abba Gold & More” by ABBA (#93), Pnau and their “Changa” album (#97), “Live” for AC/DC (#99) and Halsey at #100 with “Hopeless Fountain Kingdom”.
* Keith Urban’s “Ripcord” is back up twelve spots to No.80.
* The repackaged “Currents” by Tame Impala rises back up eight places to No.85.
DOWN:
* Leaving the Top 10 for the first time is the Daryl Braithwaite collection “Days Go By” (HP-5, WI10-4), down one to No.11, and after peaking at No.7 last week the “Christmas With…” set for Elvis Presley & the RPO (HP-7, WI10-2a) is down five places to No.12.
* Luke Bryan is down six spots to No.29 with his latest album “What Makes You Country”.
* Bruno Mars is back down six places to No.33 with his “24k Magic” album.
* The Elton John collection “Diamonds” is down nineteen places to No.35, with other dropping GHs from Midnight Oil (49 to 53) and Elvis Presley (71 to 76).
* Niall Horan drops eight places to No.37 with his debut set “Flicker”, with the self-titled Harry Styles album moves down six to No.50.
* Guy Sebastian’s “Conscious” album drops eleven places to No.46.
* Last weeks debut for Linkin Park and “One More Light Live” descends twenty-nine places to No.49 this week.
* The soundtrack for “Trolls” is down ten places to No.55, with their “Trolls Holiday” album leaving the chart from No.80.
* Chris Brown and his “Heartbreak on a Full Moon” album is down seven spots to No.75.
* G-Eazy debuted at No.38 last week with his new album “The Beautiful & Damned”, which this week plummets forty-five places to land at No.83.
* The Seal album “Standards” is down twenty-two places to No.84.
* Barbra Streisand’s “The Music… The Mem’ries… The Magic!” is down twenty-eight places to No.94.
* The Tim McGraw and Faith Hill set “The Rest of Our Lives” drops eleven places to No.98.
CHRISTMAS TITLES:
* There are two albums remaining within the Top 10 this week for Michael Buble and Farnham with ON-J, whilst Elvis slips to just outside of the ten at No.11.
* Both the Mariah Carey album “Merry Christmas” and Sia set “Everyday is Christmas” rise this week to No.13 and No.17 respectively.
* Mostly all of the remaining seasonal-sets drop this week though, with “A Pentatonix Christmas” down three to No.34.
* Human Nature’s “The Christmas Album” plummets twenty-four spots to No.39.
* Chris Isaak and “Christmas” drops thirteen places to No.52.
* The Wiggles and “Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas” drops twenty-one spots to No.71.
* The final Top 100 entry this week is the Hanson set “Finally it’s Christmas” which is back up four spots to No.90.
* Leaving this week are “Noel” for Josh Groban (#59), “One Voice at Christmas” for Aled Jones (#76) and “Trolls Holiday” (#80).
* Expect only one or two seasonal albums within the Top 100 next week, as this past weeks contained the Xmas and boxing days sales figures.
No new album entries this week.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
