Taylor Swift dominates the top five positions on the ARIA Albums Chart this week, a first for the chart, as her “Midnights” set leads the pack.
“Midnights” returns to #1 for a fourteenth overall week at the top (No.3 Vinyl), last sitting here at the start of June (5th) when it was expanded into the ‘Til Dawn Edition’, and now with her ticket sales for her upcoming Feb. 2024 tour selling into last week’s sales figures period, it has spurred on album sales for this week’s chart, giving her the entire top five positions, as “Lover” rises one spot to #2 (No.11 Vinyl), “1989” is up two spots to #3 (No.13 Vinyl), then “Reputation” also moves up two to #4 (No.10 Vinyl) and then something from this decade in “folklore” halves its position from last week are rises five spots to land at #5, plus she also scores a sixth Top 10 entry as Red (Taylor’s Version)” jumps up six spots to #9 (No.17 Vinyl), not being within the ten since February 7th, 2022.
Fourteen years ago this week we saw Michael Jackson land the top three positions (July 6th, 2009) right after his passing, and now Taylor not only surpasses that feat by logging the entire top five spots, but she’s also the first female to achieve this chart feat. Last week “Midnights” regained the top spot in New Zealand (NZ.TW-#2) for an eighth week, while locally this 14th stay at #1 for Taylor’s latest album makes it one of three albums to have achieved 14 weeks at the top, matching “So Far So Good” by Bryan Adams (from Nov. 21st, 1993) and “Only by the Night” for Kings of Leon (from Sept. 29th, 2008). This return to the top might only last for a single week, as she dropped on Friday her “Speak Now (Taylor’s Edition)”, which will most likely enter at the top next week, creating another chart-fact in that she will/could replace herself at No.1.
Taylor’s ten #1 Albums have now racked up 40 overall weeks at No.1 in Australia, placing her now eighth on the listing for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums (1965 to 2023)’ swapping places with ABBA (40 weeks from 5 #1’s), while her next target on that listing is Ed Sheeran and Pink (both with 44 weeks at #1), while on the similar list for this decade she rises to 24 weeks at #1 for the 2020’s, twice as much as her nearest competitor, Harry Styles on 12 weeks. Another little Taylor-fact I found also, is that by going back to #1 for a fifth time, “Midnights” now equals “1989” for Taylor’s most returns to the #1 spot, with that 2014 set logging nine overall weeks at the Albums-summit.
So there are four non-Taylor albums within the Top 10 this week, with a three place rebound for both “One Thing at a Time” by Morgan Wallen (9 to #6; No.1 in both The U.S.A. {15th week} and Canada [16th week]) and “The Highlights” for The Weeknd (11 to #8, 99th week within the Top 10), with the two other albums both being new entries, the highest of which is the new #1 Album in New Zealand this week, “Pink Tape” by Lil’ Uzi Vert comes in at #7 here, becoming his second Top 10 entry in Australia, as his last set “Eternal Atake” debuted and peaked at No.1 (March 16th, 2020), while he first charted with his debut set “Luv is Rage 2” (HP-22, Sept. 2017).
Coming in at No.10 is the fourth album for English act Nothing But Thieves and “Dead Club City” (No.4 Vinyl), which has landed at the top in their home country of England and also The Netherlands, while this also becomes their second Top 10 entry in Australia following on from October 2020’s “Moral Panic” (HP-8), while they’ve also landed entries here with “Broken Machine” (LP#2, HP-12, Sept. 2017) and their self-titled first set (HP-27, Oct. 2015).
TOP 20:
The only Top 10 dropout to survive another week within the Top 50 is the Metro Boomin’ soundtrack to “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (HP-2, WI10-4), down five places to #12, followed by the only stable album within the Top 20, “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles at #13. Taylor Swift sees three more albums within the Top 20 this week, all moving up, as “evermore” rises three to #14, “Fearless (TsV)” moves up two to #16 and the 2010 set “Speak Now” leaps sixteen places to land at #18, but that should be short lived as her redone edition was issued on Friday (July 7th).
Olivia Rodrigo sees her debut set “SOUR” jump back up thirteen places to #15 as the lead single from her Sept. 8th due follow-up “GUTS” called “vampire” debuts at No.1 on the singles chart this week, with the album last this high on March 20th. Post Malone announced a November 2023 tour this past week, and that has helped his “The Diamond Collection” set to move back up five places to #19, plus he also rises lower down with “Beerbongs & Bentleys” (100 to #72), “Stoney” (return at #84) and “Hollywood’s Bleeding” (return at #95).
TOP 30:
Luke Combs is back-to-back with himself this week as “Gettin’ Old” is down five to #21 and “This One’s for You” dips two to #22, while the current #2 Album in England is Elton John’s “Diamonds” (thanks to his Glastonbury performance), which here is only down two places to #23, plus further best of’s within this chart region are for Eminem (#25), Maroon 5 (#28) and on hold are Foo Fighters at #30.
TOP 40:
Nothing but rises within the Top 40 this week, with the two smallest climbs being four place moves by Morgan Wallen (#31) and Lewis Capaldi’s second set (#38), while Arctic Monkeys moves up five to #35 with “AM” (No.15 Vinyl). Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” rises back up eight to #33, nine place jumps occur for Luke Combs’ “What You See…” (#34), “Curtain Call 2” for Eminem (#36) and “Future Nostalgia” by Dua Lipa (#39), with double-digit climbs being for “Fine Line” by Harry Styles (46 to #32) and “Teenage Dreams” by Katy Perry (50 to #40).
TOP 50:
All albums here are also moving upwards, with Billie Eilish foregoing her lowest chart position of #49 last week for her ‘Sleep’ set, now back up to #42, while rising back into the Top 50 this week are “After Hours” for The Weeknd (52 to #45), “Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey (56 to #46), “Look at Me” by XXXTentacion (54 to 47), “Live in Buenos Aires” by Coldplay (53 to #48) and “GH: God’s Favourite Band” by Green Day (55 to #49), while returning to the Top 100 at #44 is the 2008 edition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Chronicles: The 20 Greatest Hits” (HP-22, peaked Nov. 2009).
The three new entries within last week’s Top 10 which decline this week are the #1 entry for Kerser and “A Gift & a Kers” (TW-71), Maisie Peters with “The Good Witch” (LW-3, TW-out) and “Suicide and Sunshine” for Trophy Eyes (LW-87, TW-out).
FURTHER NEW ENTRIES:
* #26 (LP#2) – Up, Down & Sideway – Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley (Lost Highway) is the second pairing for the husband and wife singers, having previously issued “Adam & Brooke” in February 2018 (HP-16), with the couple scoring three awards at this years Country Music Awards of Australia for two of the tracks from this new set, “Memory Lane” (Single of the Year) and “Stars of the Show” (Song of the Year), plus a further golden-guitar award for ‘Group or Duo of the Year’.
* #37 (LP#5) – Lekkerboy – Sticky Fingers (Westway Collective) is the fifth album for the Sydney indie-rock act and their first new material for this decade, while they did land at #77 on November 23rd, 2020 with their first two albums repackaged as “Land of Pleasure”/”Caress Your Soul”, with their last studio album being “Yours to Keep” (HP-4, Feb. 18th, 2019).
HP = Highest Position
LW = Last Week
WI10 – Weeks in Top 10
*ARIA Chart info is based on sales for the week from the 30th of June top the 6th of July 2023
Written, Compiled and Researched by Gavin Ryan
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
