Aussie bands and artists have had a strong sales year, with more Australians buying local albums and singles in 2014 than last year, but there’s still a lot of people buying up international pop, greatest hits collections, and soundtracks to animated movies.
That’s the portrait painted by ARIA’s just released mid-year report for the Top 100 selling albums and singles of 2014 so far.
There are 35 albums and 24 singles by (or featuring) homegrown talent in ARIA’s mid-year charts, a significant improvement on the 27 albums and 13 singles that populated the same Top 100 charts in 2013, while Aussie acts held the #1 position on the Singles chart for 12 out of the 26 tracked weeks, and 11 weeks of the Album Chart.
So who exactly are the best-selling Aussies of the year? Well, starting with the albums chart, it’s still INXS, with their ‘Very Best Of’ compilation sitting at #1, while KICK sits at #39, both thanks to the resurgence brought about through the Never Tear us Apart TV mini-series.
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In fact, nostalgia seems to be a trend for the Albums Chart, featuring ‘best of’ collections by Australian Crawl (#41), Russell Morris (#49), The Wiggles (#66) Cold Chisel (#91) sitting alongside greatest hits cuts from Pink (#52), ABBA (#5), Cliff Richard (#63), Fleetwood Mac (#74), The Eagles (#82), Bruce Springsteen (#86), Guns N Roses (#87), Rolling Stones (#90), Red Hot Chili Peppers (#100), and – umm – Nickelback (#65).
INXS also beats the Frozen soundtrack (at #2) to top the Album Sales Chart, though it’s unknown by how many units given ARIA does not disclose the exact number of units sold, though given Frozen’s multi-million sales figures over in the US, we’d hope it’d be impressive.
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The next best selling Aussie album was Chet Faker’s Built On Glass (#12), with our Top 100 appearances including Faker’s BFF Flume (#25), The Amity Affliction (#15), John Butler Trio (#16), Rufus (#25), Iggy Azalea (#40) Bliss n Eso (#42), Violent Soho (#44), 360 (#48), Dan Sultan (#50), Boy and Bear (#58), The Jezabels (#72), Illy (#75), Neil Finn and Paul Kelly (#78), Thundamentals (#79) and Ball Park Music (#96).
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Aussie artists also had a strong presence on the Singles chart; while Pharrell Williams’ ubiquitous ‘Happy’ was the best-selling single in Australia, Brisbane’s Sheppard claimed the #3 rank for continued success story, ‘Geronimo’. At #5 was pop outfit Justice Crew, with ‘Que Sera’, which spent nine weeks at the top of the charts recently (outstripping the joint record held by Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I used To Know’ and Savage Garden’s ‘Truly Madly Deeply’).
The Aussie pop dominance continued at #10, with international chart-botherers 5 Seconds Of Summer and their breakout single ‘She Looks So Perfect’. Similarly, NYC-via-Mullimbiby rapper Iggy Azalea’s Billboard record-breaking pair of singles, ‘Fancy’ (feat. Charli XCX) and Ariana grande team-up ‘Problem’ sold strongly in her native Australia, sitting at #13 and #20 respectively.
Other Aussie acts in the Top 100 Singles include Sia’s Chandelier (#8), Peking Duk’s multi-platinum Nicole Millar hit ‘High’ (#14), Vance Joy’s ‘Riptide’ (#38), Illy’s ‘Tightrope’ (#63), Chet Faker and Flume’s ‘Drop the Game’ (#66), 360 and Pez’s ‘Live It Up’ (#80), Bliss N Eso and Ceekay Jones ‘My Life’ (#81), and of course, INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ (at #67).
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Also of note is that Australians still love Lorde, her Pure Heroine is the sixth best-selling album of 2014 so far, while her debut EP The Love Club (feat. ‘Royals’) is #51 on the Singles Chart (read how an EP can feature on the Singles chart here) with ‘Team’ backed up at #75; sales no doubt helped by the 17-year-old New Zealander’s current headline tour of the country.
“The year to date has been remarkable for the success of Australian artists both here and across the globe,” says ARIA CEO Dan Rosen. “It has been a while since we have seen this many Australian artists rise to the top-end of the charts, in particular on the Singles Chart. It is definitely a very exciting time for Australian music fans to cheer on and support our local artists.”
Top 15 Albums Of 2014 So Far
View the full ARIA mid-year Top 100 Albums Chart here.
- INXS – The Very Best
- Frozen Soundtrack
- Coldplay Ghost Stories
- Katy Perry – Prism
- Pharrell Williams – G I R L
- Lorde – Pure Heroine
- Avicii – True
- London Grammar – If You Wait
- Arctic Monkeys – AM
- Bruce Springsteen – High Hopes
- Beyoncé – Beyoncé
- Chet Faker – Built On Glass
- Eminem- The Marshall Mathers LP2
- Michael Bublé – To Be Loved
- The Amity Affliction – Let The Ocean Take Me
Top 15 Singles Of 2014 So Far
View the full ARIA mid-year Top 100 Singles Chart here.
- Pharrell Williams – Happy
- A Great Big World feat. Christina Aguilera – Say Something
- Sheppard – Geronimo
- Clean Bandit feat. jess Glynne – Rather Be
- Justice Crew – Que Sera
- Joel Fletcher feat. Savage – Swing
- John Legend – All Of Me
- Sia – Chandelier
- Rudimental feat. Emeli Sande & nas – Free
- 5 Seconds of Summer – She Looks So Perfect
- Sara Bareilles – Brave
- Jason Derulo – Trumpets
- Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX – Fancy
- Peking Duk feat. Nicole Millar – High
- Coldplay – Magic
