Once again, ARIA has proven itself a disgrace with a complete lack of attention to Australian artists in 2023. Not one Australian song released in 2023 made the ARIA End of Year Top 100 Singles and only one Australian album released in 2023 made the ARIA End of Year Top 100 Albums.
Of the just three Australian songs in the ARIA Top 100 Singles of 2023, the first showing is at no 37 with the American made 2021 recording ‘Stay’ by The Kid Laroi & (that well known Aussie *cough*) Justin Bieber.
Then we jump down to no 52 for the 10-year old Vance Joy ‘Riptide’. At a decade old, ‘Riptide’ is considered a “classic hit”. It wasn’t the oldest song on the chart though. Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 song ‘Dreams’ was at no 33 and The Killers 2003 hit ‘Mr Brightside’ was at 29.
The only other Australian song in the ARIA Singles Chart of 2023 was Dean Lewis’ ‘How Do I Say Goodbye’, released in September 2022.
It is just as pathetic on the album chart. The first Australian album to show up in the ARIA End of Year Albums for 2023 doesn’t appear until no 58. It is the 12-year old ‘The Very Best’ by INXS released in 2011. The second biggest Australian album of 2023 was Tame Impala ‘Currents’, released in 2015 at no 76. Third was Spacey Jane ‘Here Comes Everybody’ at no 87. At least that was released in 2023. The final showing at no 94 is The Kid Laroi’s 2020 released ‘Fuck Love’ which did better in 2023 than his 2023 release ‘The First Time’.
I’ve been covering the uselessness of ARIA for a long time. This is not a new development. ARIA spends too much time peacocking itself at events like that circus called the ARIA Awards instead of working to showcase Australian artists to the Australian public. With each passing year ARIA becomes more and more irrelevant but based on its own 2023 data, ARIA has stooped to a new level of uselessness like we have never seen before.
The ARIA formula treats different consumer reactions, streaming and physical sales, as the same thing. But its not the same thing s they make up a magic formula that treats around 170 completely different and unrelated “listens” streamed by various providers by 170 different people who don’t know each other or even whatever each other has listened to, and counts that exactly the same as one person spending real money on real releases.
To make matters worse, ARIA also includes playlist plays from playlists curated outside Australia with no Australian content included. When someone in Australia chooses the playlist, every song played in that playlist goes toward the ARIA chart figure, even if the person didn’t choose the song or the artist, even if they turn it on at the end of the day and fall asleep and no-one hears it, even if they just have it streaming all day long when they go to work with no-one in the house except their dog, cat or budgie.
The ARIA Chart is a completely useless tool for music fans and it is a completely useless tool for radio additions.
Who benefits from that? The three major labels, Universal, Sony and Warner. Nothing will change.
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