The Voice Season 2 winner Harrison Craig sees his debut album “More Than a Dream” debut at the top of the ARIA Albums chart this week, the album selling enough to achieve Gold (●) in its first week of sales.
“More Than a Dream” becomes the 675th No.1 album in Australia (1965 to 2013) and the 534th for ARIA (1983 to 2013), plus the album is the 329th album to debut at No.1 and the fourteenth consecutive album to do so since February this year. The last album to reach No.1 for the Mercury label was The Voice Season 1 winner Karise Eden this very week in 2012 (2-July), as her set “My Journey” spent six consecutive weeks at No.1.
It’s the third album to feature the word ‘More’ in its title after Rod Stewart’s “Blondes Have More Fun” (Jan 1979) and “Sigh No More” (Feb 2010) for Mumford & Sons, but there have been no previous albums with ‘Than’ in their titles. As for ‘Dream’, this is the sixth with a ‘Dream’, the last being “Teenage Dream” for Katy Perry (Sept 2010). Harrison’s album becomes the 160th by an Australian Artist to reach No.1 and the sixth this year after Flume, Nick Cave, Hillsong United, Birds of Tokyo and most recently Bernard Fanning, whilst Harrison is also the 84th Australian act to reach No.1 locally. He becomes the twentieth Australian Solo Male artist to reach No.1 (the first was Billy Field in 1981) and “More Than a Dream” is the 188th by a Male Solo Artist to reach No.1 in Australia.
This new reality contestant to reach No.1 becomes the thirteenth act with the seventeenth No.1 to achieve this in the past thirteen years, so below is a list of the previous local and overseas Reality Show winners to hit No.1 in Australia:
#1LP|Entry Date|Wks|Titles – Artists
414|08-May-00|1wk|Bardot – Bardot
470|15-Dec-03|4wk|Just As I Am – Guy Sebastian
472|16-Feb-04|4wk|That’s What I’m Talking About – Shannon Noll
483|02-Aug-04|2wk|One Determined Heart – Paulini
497|04-Apr-05|4wk|Anthony Callea – Anthony Callea
509|24-Oct-05|1wk|Lift – Shannon Noll
541|18-Dec-06|5wk|The Winners Journey – Damien Leith
554|27-Aug-07|1wk|Where We Landed – Damien Leith
555|03-Sep-07|2wk|One Chance – Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent)
565|04-Feb-08|1wk|Spirit – Leona Lewis (X-Factor UK)
605|30-Nov-09|11wk|I Dreamed a Dream – Susan Boyle (Britain’s Got Talent)
636|14-Nov-11|2wk|Someone to Watch Over Me – Susan Boyle
643|09-Apr-12|5wk|Up All Night – One Direction (UK X-Factor)
649|02-July-12|6wk|My Journey – Karise Eden
657|19-Nov-12|2wk|Take Me Home – One Direction
658|03-Dec-12|1wk|Armageddon – Guy Sebastian
675|01-July-13|1wk*|More Than a Dream – Harrison Craig
Last weeks top two debuts move down one place each this week, with “Yeezus” for Kanye West dropping to No.2 and Troy Cassar-Daly and Adam Harvey’s “The Great Country Songbook” down to No.3, whilst rising back up a to No.4 is “The Great Gatsby” Soundtrack and back up two places to No.5 is Bruno Mars with “Unorthodox Jukebox”. Daft Punk hold steady at No.6 in their sixth week on the chart with “Random Access Memories”, Pink is back up five places to No.7 with “The Truth about Love”. Benard Fanning drops four places to No.8 with “Departures”, “Ice on the Sun” for Empire of the Sun falls six places to No.9 and down to No.10 is Passenger with “All the Little Lights”.
NEW PEAKS & MOVERS: With Pink back inside the Top 10, her “Greatest Hits… So Far” is back inside the Top 20, up twelve places to No.17 thanks to her national touring starting this past week in Perth, plus she returns to the Top 100 at No.88 with “Funhouse” (HP-1). Lana Del Rey’s recent Top 10 success helps her album “Born to Die” jump back up twenty-four places to No.31, and the recently re-issued anniversary edition of You Am I albums return them to the Top 100 this week. “Hi Fi Way” (HP-1, March 1995) is back in at No.48, “Hourly, Daily” (HP-1, July 1996) returns at No.49 and their first album “Sound as Ever” (HP-61, peaked July 1994) is back in at a new peak of No.56.
DOWN DOWN: Both of the two Top 10 dropouts this week spent three weeks apiece inside the Top 10, with John Fogerty’s “Wrote a Song for Everyone” (HP-6) down three places to No.12 and the former No.1 “…Like Clockwork” for Queens of the Stone Age also down three places to No.13. Falling fifteen places to No.29 is “Native” for OneRepublic, and the “Fast & Furious 6” Soundtrack is down eleven places to No.30. “Paramore” for Paramore falls seventeen places to No.40, but down thirty-five places to No.52 after debuting at No.17 last week is the latest for Sigur Ros, “Kveikur”. Leaving the charts from last week Top 50 are “Destroy and Rebuild” for Rates from No.38 and “The Wack Album” for The Lonely Island from No.39.
New Zealand act Fat Freddy’s Drop debut at No.11 with their third album “Blackbird”, which instantly becomes their highest charting album in Australia, and second overall, as they hit No.45 in mid-June 2009 with their second set “Dr. Boondigga & the Big BW”. Also landing in the Top 20 at No.14 is the second album for J. Cole entitled “Born Sinner”. His first set “Cole World: The Sideline Story” debuted and peaked at No.52 in October 2011. And rounding out the Top 20 debuts with their second entry is Falling in Reverse with “Fashionably Late” at No.20, placing one spot higher than their previous entry from August 2011, “The Drug in Me is You” (HP-21).
The Gyuto Order of Monks founded in 1475 in Tibet has orders all around the world (including Australia), and their harmonic chants have been put on the album “Chants: The Spirit of Tibet”, which debuts at No.26 this week. The album was produced by Youth (ex-Killing Joke) after the monks were signed to Universal Music earlier this year.
Lower 50: Apart from the You Am I first three albums returning to the Top 100, there are also re-entries from The Beatles with “#1” (HP-1×9) at No.68, “Overexposed” by Maroon 5 at No.78, “The Next Day” for David Bowie at No.85, “Watch the Throne” for Jay-Z and Kanye West at No.87, the box-set for Coldplay “4CD Catalogue Set” back in at No.89 and “Take Me Home” for One Direction at No.92.
Wes Carr and his band project Buffalo Tales debut at No.83 with “Roadtrip Confessions” and right below at No.84 is Skillet with “Rise”, the eighth album for the US Christian rock band, but their first to chart here. The compilations albums “25 Years – The Chain” for Fleetwood Mac and “The Essential 1927” for local late 80’s band 1927 debut at No.93 and No.94 respectively, and the last new entry at No.100 is “Evil Friends” for Portugal. The Man, also his eighth album and first to chart here.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
