Michael Buble holds at No.1 for a third straight week on the ARIA Albums chart, becoming the eighth non-consecutive week that his “Christmas” album has spent at the top (five weeks last Xmas, three {so far} this year).
Michael Buble Christmas
It also gives him his 21st accumulated week at No.1 in Australia, matching fellow Canadian Shania Twain’s efforts with her two No.1 albums (“Come on Over” and “Up”). Michael also ties with The Eagles who amassed their twenty-one weeks at the top from three albums (“Hotel California”, 12 weeks, “The Long Run”, 3 weeks and “Long Road Out of Eden”, 6 weeks). This also moves Michael up to equal 20th on the list of ‘Most Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums’.
Pink holds at No.2 for another week with “The Truth about Love”, and Rod Stewart climbs four places to a new peak of No.3 with “Merry Christmas, Baby”, whilst Guy Sebastian picks up a double Platinum sales certification for “Armageddon”, it holds still at No.4, as too does “Take Me Home” for One Direction holding at No.5.
“Mythology” for The Bee Gees climbs back up three places to its former peak of No.6 (peaked late October 2012), and down one place to No.7 is “Red” for Taylor Swift. Bruno Mars holds at No.8 for a second week with “Unorthodox Jukebox”, whilst Susan Boyle returns to the Top 10 at No.9 with “Standing Ovation”, up two places from last week. Climbing six places to No.10 are The Seekers with their “Golden Jubilee Album”, their first Top 10 album in fifteen years, as the November 1997 album “Future Road” debuted and peaked at No.4. This also becomes their eleventh Top 10 album overall since December 1966.
NEW PEAKS & MOVERS: Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas” (HP-2, peaked Dec 1994) returns to the ARIA Albums chart for the fourth time (re-entered in 1995 (#25) and 2008 (#78) at No.19 this week, helped by the re-charting hit from the album “All I Want for Christmas is You” (HP-2, TW-40). Of Monsters and Men see their album “My Head is an Animal” back up five places to No.22, and it’s now Gold in sales, whilst “21” for Adele is back up ten places to No.26.
Frank Ocean sees his “CHANNEL Orange” (HP-18) back up twenty-one places to No.35, the newly re-packaged “Ceremonials” for Florence + the Machine is back up eight spots to No.37 and “El Camino” for The Black Keys jumps back up ten places to No.39. “The Rubens” for The Rubens also returns to the Top 50, back up nine spots to No.42.
DOWN DOWN: Samantha Jade’s self-titled album tumbles ten places to No.13 this week, and the other album leaving the Top 10 is “GRRR!” (HP-7×3) for The Rolling Stones which is down a couple of places to No.12. After cracking the Top 20 last week, Macklemore’s album “The Heist” drops down six spots to No.23, but down ten places to No.34 is Reece Mastin with “Beautiful Nightmare”.
Ke$ha and her “Warrior” album are down thirteen spots to No.45, but falling twenty-six places to No.48 is Green Day with their third album this year “Tre!”. The “Glee S4.Vol 1” soundtrack tumbles forty places to No.86, and after debuting at No.19 last week, the “iTunes Session” album for Matt Corby leaves the Top 100 altogether.
Scoring the highest new entry of the week at No.11 is the self-titled eight track album for X-Factor boy-band The Collective, featuring the studio versions of the songs they performed on the show, their current single “Surrender” (HP-6, TW-84), and their version of the Wham! song “Last Christmas”.
Lower 50: Justin Bieber’s “Believe” album is up one place to No.51, but also picks up a new sales certification of Platinum, whilst the Cold Chisel “The Best of – All for You” holds at No.57 but is now 2xPlatinum in sales. Keith Urban’s “The Story So Far” is back up seven places to No.55 (ahead of his appearances in January 2013 on American Idol).
The documentary ‘Under African Skies’ screened on TV last week, and features as a bonus DVD on the Paul Simon album “Graceland: 25th Anniversary Edition” (HP-12, July 2012), which returns at No.67 this week, whilst Michael Crawford’s “Christmas: O Holy Night” is up eleven places to a new peak of No.70.
“A Tribute to Ray Charles” (HP-53) for Darren Percival rebounds nineteen places to No.74, and due to his tickets going on sale for next years tour, Bruce Springsteen returns at No.80 with “Wrecking Ball” (HP-2, peaked March 2012). Also back in this week are “What We Saw from the Cheap Seats” (HP-9) for Regina Spektor at No.87, “Symphony of Life” (HP-60) for Tina Arena at No.95 and finally back in at No.98 is “Battle Born” (HP-2) for The Killers.
The fifth album for Game debuts at No.58 and is entitled “Jesus Piece”. All of his previous four albums have charted here in Australia, with his third album “L.A.X.” (September 2008), and his fourth set “The R.E.D. Album” (September 2011) both debuting and peaking at No.12 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Also all of his four previous albums have debuted within the Top 50, so hopefully this album will climb up next week.
The final new entry of the week is the twentieth albums chart entry for the Glee TV series, as debuting at No.68 is “Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 3”. The previous two volumes peaked at No.13 (Volume 1, Nov 2010) and No.24 (Volume 2, debuted Nov, peaked late Dec 2011). The Glee gang is also at No.86 this week with their Season 4 Volume 1 album.
Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com
The ARIA chart is updated every Sunday at 6pm
