The Veronicas Step Out With Top-Two Debut On ARIA Albums Chart

The Veronicas have made good on their midweek potential, with their self-titled comeback album heading straight to #2 on this week's ARIA Albums Chart.

Though it wasn't quite enough to prevent a return to pole position by US pop darling Taylor Swift (1989, #1), The Veronicas' efforts were nonetheless capable of staving off last week's top placeholders, One Direction, from taking silver, with the recent ARIA performers and their recent full-length Four slipping to #3 this week. Both Swift and The Veronicas performed strongly in the singles stakes too, the former taking out that #1 position as well, with incumbent leader Blank Space, and the latter coming at #5, with If You Love Someone.

Aussie reality-show veterans Dean Ray and Guy Sebastian make a back-to-back entry this week, with Ray's self-titled long-player earning him #5 rights and Sebastian's Madness just behind, at #6. Although earlier looking like a strong possibility for the top ten, David Guetta falls just shy of midweek expectations, with Listen going home at #11. This week also sees a return to the charts for freshly minted ARIA winner Chet Faker, whose Built On Glass climbs back into the top 20 this week to reach #15. Adored songstress Jessica Mauboy marks the final high-placing full-length entrant for the week — her new LP Beautiful picks up #19 — with lower-ranking debuts going to Olly Murs (Never Been Better, #27), Iggy Azalea (Reclassified, #32), and Boyzone (Dublin To Detroit, #43).

Back on the singles ladder, we see big movement from Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk, featuring Bruno Mars, which leaps nine positions to hit #2 this week, but not too much in the way of entirely new faces — James Newton Howard's The Hanging Tree comes in at #12, the next-highest-placing singles debut after The Veronicas', while Nicki Minaj's Bed Of Lies, featuring Skylar Grey, places at #18, and Samantha Jade's Sweet Talk claims #38.