It’s a stable No.1 for an eighth straight week as “The Greatest Showman” soundtrack is the top selling ARIA Albums Chart leader again this week.
The soundtrack is also the No.1 set in England (7th wk), and looking back in time at this time of year you can see a yearly trend to previous soundtracks at the top in “Trolls” (3 wks, Jan 2017), “Molly” (2 wks, Feb 2016), “Fifty Shades of Grey” (4 wks, Feb 2015), then back to “8 Miles” (2 wks, Jan 2003), “Coyote Ugly” (6 wks, Jan 2001), “Titanic” (11 broken weeks, Feb 1998), “Romeo & Juliet” (9 broken wks, Jan 1997), “The Bodyguard” (5 wks, Jan 1993), “Cocktail” (5 wks, Jan 1989) and “Dirty Dancing” (8 wks, Feb 1988).
The Top 4 albums are all on hold this week, with two further soundtracks holding their debut spots from last week in Kendrick Lamar led soundtrack for “Black Panther” at No.2 and the “Fifty Shades Freed” set again at No.4, while Ed Sheeran is one week away from his one year anniversary not only upon the charts but within the Top 4 with his third set “÷ (Divide)”, which is newly certified 7x▲Platinum in sales now, and with his national tour starting in Perth on March 3rd (next weekend) the album might rise back to the top of the albums chart.
The first of two Top 10 debut this week is the fifth studio album for local indie-pop act Ball Park Music and “Good Mood” coming in at No.5, becoming the Brisbane bands fourth Top 10 album and fifth Top 40 entry, with their September 2016 set “Every Night the Same Dream” hitting No.3, their highest charted being their third album “Puddinghead” which debuted and peaked at No.2 in April of 2014. The second Top 10 entry is the second album for New Zealand artist Marlon Williams with “Make Way for Love” which debuted at the top in his home country and becomes his first Top 10 entry here, plus it surpasses the No.31 peak of his self-titled debut set from May of 2015.
Post Malone is back up two spots to No.6 with his “Stoney” set and Eminem rises three to No.7 with his “Revival” album, while Pink is on hold at No.9 with her “Beautiful Trauma” album and the second Ed Sheeran album “x (Multiply)” is up one spot to No.10 for its 104th week within the Top 10, while his first set “+(Positive)” is up two places to No.20 in its 299th week within the Top 100.
UP:
* Kendrick Lamar has three albums within the Top 100 this week, with his ‘Black Panther’ produced set at No.2, his last studio album “DAMN.” is back up four to No.17 and his older set “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City” is up a spot to No.85.
* The Eminem collection “Curtain Call: The Hits” is back up five spots to No.25, while other rising GH’s are by The Wiggles (48 to 36), Cold Chisel (45 to 37), Queen (GH 54 to 40 and Platinum Collection 88 to 79 ahead of their Aussie tour which starts Feb 24th), Red Hot Chili Peppers (59 to 48), Crowded House (66 to 50), The Killers (75 to 55), Maroon 5 (77 to 65), Michael Jackson (94 to 66), Fleetwood Mac (GH, 83 to 76), Guns N’ Roses (91 to 78) and Play School (100 to 98).
* The new Vance Joy release and massive pre-promotion for his second album helps his debut set “Dream Your Life Away” to rise eighteen spots to No.26.
* The new Dua Lipa Top 10 single “IDGAF” helps her self-titled to rise three spots to No.30.
* Angus & Julia Stone are back up five places to No.31 with their “Snow” set.
* The older Drake album “More Life” is back up thirteen spots to No.38, with his “Views” set rising seventeen places to No.52.
* The Chris Brown album “Heartbreak on a Full Moon” is up four to No.39 and now Gold (●) in sales.
* The AC/DC “Live” album is back up eleven spots to No.42.
* Two new stage plays commenced their Melbourne runs on Friday the 23rd in “Beautiful” the Carole King story, with her 1971 set “Tapestry” back up nineteen spots to No.44, and the Green Day musical “American Idiot” helps their “Greatest Hits: God’s Favourite Band” back up twenty-two places to No.71.
* Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” rises back up eight places to No.47.
* Luke Bryan and his album “What Makes You Country” is back up six spots to No.51.
* The Hilltop Hoods and “Drinking…Walking…Restring” rises twelve places to No.53.
* After tumbling from sixty to No.95 last week the Niall Horan debut album “Flicker” is back up thirty-nine places to No.56, while the self-titled Harry Styles set is back up six to No.73.
* Zara Larsson scored a Gold certification last week for her “So Good” album, which this week is back up twenty-nine spots to land at No.69.
* The Weeknd is back up seventeen places to No.72 with his older set “Beauty Behind the Madness”.
* There are nine albums returning to the Top 100, the highest of which is the NF set “Perception” (HP-73) at No.77, followed by the “Stranger Things” TV soundtrack at No.81, “Glory Days” for Little Mix (#84), “Flower Boy” by Tyler,the Creator (#87), “Caress Your Soul” for Sticky Fingers (#88), the former two times No.1 set for Disturbed and “Immortalized” (#89), the “Frozen” soundtrack (#94), “ABBA Gold & More” (#96) and “The King” for Elvis Presley (#99).
DOWN:
* Three albums leave the Top 10, with Justin Timberlake and “Man of the Woods” (HP-2, WI10-2) down four places to No.11, with the other two evacuees being debuts from last week in “Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life” (HP-5, WI10-1) for The Wombats down eight to No.13 and “Blend Inn” (HP-6, WI10-1) for Hockey Dad plummeting forty places to land at No.46.
* Gang of Youths have a four place drop to No.19 with “Go Father in Lightness”.
* Macklemore drops five spots to No.28 with his “Gemini” album.
* The Fall Out Boy set “M A N I A” is only down five spots this week to No.43.
* The soundtrack for “Pitch Perfect 3” is down nine spots to No.49, while “The Secret Daughter Season 2” set for Jessica Mauboy is down ten spots to No.92.
* The two Shania Twain album entries drop down to be back-to-back this week, with her “Greatest Hits” down eight to No.57 and her latest studio album “Now” dropping nineteen places to No.58.
* The Foo Fighters set “Concrete and Gold” slumps eighteen spots to No.59.
* Shannon Noll might be doing well in the ‘Celebrity’ jungle, but his album “Unbroken” is down fourteen places this week to No.61.
* Last weeks debut at No.31 for the MGMT set “Little Dark Age” is down thirty-nine spots to No.70.
* Pnau see a nine place slide to No.82 with their “Changa” album.
* The teaming of husband and wife singer Adam Eckersley and Brooke McClymont sees their album “Adam & Brooke” drop a massive seventy-four spots to No.90.
* The Cat Stevens collection “Remember…” drops thirteen places to No.93.
* Leaving the Top 100 from last weeks Top 50 are Franz Ferdinand (#28), Celtic Woman (#34) and DZ Deathrays (#50).
FURTHER NEW ENTRY:
* #100 (LP#2) – Vicious Pleasures by Endless Heights is the Sydney five-piece band’s second release and first chart entry, with their 2013 debut set being “New Bloom”, while they also issued their debut six-track EP in late 2011 entitled “Dream Strong”.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
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