AC/DC, Hilltop Hoods Maintain Top Spots On Carlton Dry Indie Charts

Aussie rock veterans AC/DC and celebrated hip hop trio the Hilltop Hoods have maintained their positions atop the Carlton Dry Independent Music Charts, this week, with the former's 15th album Rock Or Bust and the latter's single Cosby Sweater getting it done for another seven days.

Given the time of year, we weren't expecting much in the way of upsets from new entrants — in fact, the week is totally void of debuts — but there has been little significant movement even within the existing artists who have achieved chart recognition of late.

Indeed, the biggest moves in the album stakes this week came from Lee Kernaghan (Driving Home For Christmas), who rose five spots, from #12 to #7, a leap matched only by ABC For Kids Christmas, which is up from #19 to #14 this week. At the pointy end, the disturbance was less noticeable — the Hilltops jump up a spot for Walking Under Stars to slide in just behind AC/DC, at #2, while Jimmy Barnes' 30:30 Hindsight enjoyed a slight boost, back inside the top five (from #6) at #3. The Countdown retrospective album steps up a place to #4, switching spots with Hottest 100 frontrunner Chet Faker and Built On Glass at #5.

Interestingly, the final four spots on the Albums ladder are all occupied by fresh re-entries — from #17 to #20 respectively, Hillsong (We Have A Saviour), The Angels (Greatest Hits Live), The Smith Street Band (Throw Me In The River), and The Wiggles (Hot Potatoes! The Best Of The Wiggles) are all back in action this week.

The Singles rankings saw much the same story over the past seven days — Peking Duk (Take Me Over, feat. SAFIA) swap places with Will Sparks (Ah Yeah) to fill the #2 and #3 spots respectively, while Timmy Trumpet (Freaks) and Mr Faker (Talk Is Cheap) stay strong at last week's positions of #4 and #5. In fact, the top nine singles are the same top nine singles as last week (just ordered differently), though previous #10 holders Peking Duk (High) drop to #11 this week as Vance Joy and Riptide — which has now been in the charts for 89 weeks — pushes back to round out the top ten.