Music sales figures for anything not called Sheeran were atrocious in Australia last week but the true picture was even uglier when you take away the mask.
The mask is the various rules used to allocated chart positions. For example, compilation albums are not counted, streams are. That results in a murky
The ARIA album chart is actually not the real representation of the previous weeks sales. It does not include compilation albums. When you look at the full chart, seven of the Top 10 albums fall out of the Top 10, two don’t even make the Top 20.
When compilations are factored back in, ‘So Fresh The Hits of Winter 2017’ is the number one album. It is also a comfortable number one with more than 3,700 sales ahead of Ed Sheeran’s ‘divide’. Lorde’s ‘Melodrama’ at no 2 moves to no. 9 and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘DAMN’ drops to 10. However, when Lamar’s streaming sales figure is removed ‘DAMN’ falls out of the Top 30.
Australian Combined Album Chart
1. Various – So Fresh The Hits of Winter 2017
2. Ed Sheeran – divide
3. Various – Ray Hadley: Those Were The Days Vol 2
4. Various – 101 Classic Hits
5. Various – Triple J Hottest 100 Vol 24
6. Various – So Fresh: The Hits of Summer 2017 + Best of 2016
7. Various – Sing Your Heart Out 2017
8. Various – 35 Years of Waking Up With Today
9. Lorde – Melodrama
10. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN
The Australian charts were recently derailed when a formula for streaming was added to the figures. However, the chart was never accurate prior to that because of the disqualification of compilations. Now without compilations and with streaming we have a ‘smoke and mirrors’ report being published weekly.
We are starting to see record ‘no 1 reigns’ because of the long-tail streaming data factored in but failing to see accurate positions because compilations are not being counted.
The ugly truth is that took less than 800 CD/download sales for Lorde to have what is currently listed as the no. 2 album in Australia.
