Move over Mariah Carey, an album of Aussie birdsongs is here

We all love to see a surprise album fly high in music which is why it’s so great to see a collection of Aussie birdsongs reach the top five on the ARIA Album Chart this week.

Just as perennial Christmas titans Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey returned to stake out their usual territory, Songs of Disappearance is the little birdsongs album that could. Those two have been bypassed into number five by the birdsongs record.

Songs of Disappearance is packed with the sounds of 53 different endangered Aussie birds. It contains tracks you all know and love like ‘Gang-gang Cockatoo’ and ‘Flinders Ranges Thick-billed Grasswren’. Wait until Mariah gets wind of the album’s success. She’ll ditch ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ for ‘Gang-gang Cockatoo’ faster than you can say, “Is that bird extinct yet?”

The album finds itself in esteemed company, with the top five being completed by Adele, Ed Sheeran, Paul Kelly, and Taylor Swift. And Anthony Albrecht, a PhD student at Charles Darwin University and co-founder of The Bowerbird Collective, genuinely told ABC that “it’s not surprising” that the birdsongs album is performing so well.

“It’s absolutely incredible to have knocked Michael Buble, Mariah Carey and a whole bunch of other really famous artists out of the (top five),” he said. “In some ways, it’s not surprising, because I believe Australians generally are so much more attuned now to the environmental crisis that we’re all facing — and that the unique and incredible species that also call Australia home are facing.”

So if you’re after a stocking filler for your mum or nan this Christmas, Songs of Disappearance is available digitally on CD for $12, or can be purchased digitally for just $9.99.

53 endangered bird voices for under a tenner? That’s just good value right there. The money from its sales are going to a good cause too, with proceeds being donated to BirdLife Australia’s conservation programs.