Peach PRC
Peach PRC’s Porcelain this week became the 36th Australian debut album to make it to #1 on the ARIA chart.
Porcelain aced it on the Australian Albums Chart and #4 on both the Albums and Vinyl Albums charts.
Hailed as a loving and intimate freeze frame of young queer culture, the Adelaide performer took to social media to thank fans.
“This could only have happened with you guys, my silver cans, my peach pit, my faeries!!” she wrote. “You’ve always allowed me the space to grow and change and that feels so rare and special so I will honour that grace you’ve given me.
“Thank you for loving the art that I pour so much into, it’s magical and joyful to make even when it’s hard. so the fact that I get to make it because there’s people who want to hear it is something too deep for me to even touch. I can’t thank you enough.”
It’s Peach’s second time at the top spot, but first time with an album. In 2023, her EP Manic Dream Pixie spent a week atop the Top 50.
The ARIA Charts came into being in 1983. Before that, there was a mix of The Kent Report, in-house calculations by magazines as Go-Set and Juke, and listings by radio stations.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
So none of the ARIA Charts acknowledge earlier totem pole debut albums as Skyhooks’ Living In The ‘70s (1974) and Men At Work’s Business As Usual (1981).
Here is a post-ARIA list.
Jimmy Barnes – Bodyswerve
(Top for 2 weeks, October 1984)
After Cold Chisel’s first split, Barnes scooped together songs meant for Cold Chisel – including No Second Prize about the truck deaths of their roadies Alan Dallow and Billy Rowe – and Sam Cooke and Janis Joplin covers with tough blues-rock players.
Barnes called it “so rough ..I was jumping in the deep end. I didn't have a clue, but I thought that was the best way to go."
Crowded House – Crowded House
(Top for 1 week, June 1987)
After Split Enz split in Melbourne, Neil Finn and Paul Hester decided to stay together. Originally Bones Hillman of The Swingers was to be bassist, but Nick Seymour got the gig.
Made in Los Angeles with Mitchell Froom, critics drooled over the hooks of Don't Dream It's Over, Mean To Me, World Where You Live, Now We're Getting Somewhere, and Something So Strong.
But Crowded House made another milestone. It ranks as one of the longest to take to the top spot – 45 weeks. It entered the charts on July 28, 1986, and took spot on June 8 the next year.
1927 – …Ish
(Top for 4 weeks, early 1989)
With a name derived from main songwriter Garry Frost’s saying “I haven’t done that since 1927!” and a record title to denote a blend of styles, there was a buzz about the pop hooks of That's When I Think Of You and Compulsory Hero.
But after a year of trying to nail a record deal for them, producer Charles Fisher put it through his own Trafalgar Productions. Result: one of the biggest selling local debut albums.
It went 6x Platinum (sales of 350,000) and stayed in the Top 100 for 71 weeks.
The 12th Man – Wired World Of Sports
(Top for 3 weeks, from January 24, 1988)
Master impressionist Billy Birmingham sent up Wide World Of Sports hosts Mike Gibson and Ian Chappell, and commentators Richie Benaud, Darrell Eastlake, Jack Gibson, and Max Walker and won an ARIA for best comedy release.
Ian Moss – Matchbox
(Top for 3 weeks, from August 20, 1989)
When Ian Moss started work on Matchbook he knew what he wanted – R&B with a guitar tidal wave, and touches of soul on the fringe.
The challenge was to keep the sound distinctive from Cold Chisel’s – especially since Chisel’s Don Walker wrote six of the ten tracks, and three were a collab between the two. The first sessions were in Nashville, but he pressed the destructo button and decided to make it in Australia.
Two weeks before sessions began, he’d finished the melody to Tucker’s Daughter and whop-whooped around the house knowing he had a hit. He sent the cassette to Walker to finish off. The only lyric Moss had was, “Hey there, motherfucker!” which Walker knew had to go.
After Matchbook peaked at #1, it stayed in the Top 10 for a further 14 weeks. It sold 200,000 copies. He won five ARIAs for Best Australian Debut Single, Best Australian Debut Album, Australian Song of the Year, Best Australian Album, and Best Australian Male Artist which gave him runs on the board to tour overseas.
Baby Animals – Baby Animals
(Top for 6 weeks, from February 1992)
With the uber-charismatic dangeresque Suze DeMarchi grabbing listeners into the band’s whirring rifferamas, it was not surprising that Eddie Van Halen, Robert Plant, and Bryan Adams begged them to join their tours.
Certified 8x Platinum, Baby Animals was the best selling debut Australian rock album until Jet's Get Born album 12 years later.
Diesel – Hepfidelity
(Top for 4 weeks, from March 22, 1992)
To open up to his solo possibilities, Diesel’s approach to Hepfidelity was to take it back to square one.
He explained, “Growing up, I would spend hours on the floor listening to records with headphones, dissecting every element. The second half of the recording process in LA for Hep was a product of that time.
“It was in that city that I got to work with maestro Phil Shenale on the under currents: the loops, pads, whistles, and bells from the sessions. We’d spend hours every morning mapping out what I was hearing in my head, with Phil bringing something to the studio for us to record on later in the day. That was always an exciting time: I was a kid in a musical candy store.”
At the consoles Terry Manning, Don Gehman, and Rick Will tapped into Diesel’s head. So did Bernie Worrell (Parliament Funkadelic), Wayne Jackson & Andrew Love (The Memphis Horns), Al Green’s backing singers Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes, and Tommy Simms on bass and Yak Sherrit on drums.
Diesel himself came up with some cracker songs as Love Junk, Come To Me, Tip Of My Tongue, Man Alive, and One More Time. Hepfidelity was certified 3× Platinum in Australia, and set the tone for Diesel’s heavy decade.
Silverchair – Frogstomp
(Top for 3 weeks, from April 1995)
In 1994, both Mushroom and Sony Music’s new alt-rock imprint Murmur, were chasing Australia’s best known 15-year olds.
Murmur’s John O’Donnell clinched the pitch by casually mentioning he’d interviewed Nirvana as a journalist, and John Watson gave them a rare Pearl Jam live album which meant they were the only ones in Newcastle to have a copy.
This sums up Frogstomp: its rawness came from being recorded in nine days with grabs as Tomorrow, Pure Massacre, and Israel's Son.
Daniel Johns would reflect on what he liked about the record, “It sounds exactly like we sounded. The songwriting might not be genius, but I think sonically, the performances are really good. It's really honest; it's just three Australian kids thrashing it out in the studio and that's exactly how it sounds.”
Savage Garden – Savage Garden
(Top for 12 weeks, April 1997)
In 1995, two unknowns from Brisbane calling themselves Bliss sent out a demo cassette tape covered with glitter to 150 music executives. They wrote great pop songs but grunge was ruling at the time, and only three replied. One wanted to put them in pirate costumes.
John Woodruff got jazzed by songs such as Truly Madly Deeply, I Want You, and To The Moon And Back and got in touch immediately. Using his international contacts and radio-friendly instincts, he pulled off a masterstroke.
Financing the album by extending the mortgage on his house and using international advances, he ensured it made money from day one. Australian record companies turned them down, so he went for the hungry Roadshow Music set up by a major film company of the same name.
Savage Garden, which cost $150,000 to make, sold 12 million worldwide. It entered the ARIA chart at #1 and was certified 12x Platinum. It reached #3 in the US, and went Platinum in the UK, New Zealand and Singapore.
Natalie Imbruglia – Left Of The Middle
(Top for 1 week, August 23, 1998)
Working with UK songwriters and producers, electro-pop Left Of The Middle had an awesome lead-off single Torn. It sold 7 million copies, going Top 5 in the UK and Top 10 in the US, and was nominated for a Grammy.
Neil Finn – Try Whistling This
(Top for 2 weeks, June 1998)
For his debut solo record, Neil Finn was inspired by Beck’s Mutations album.
"I wasn't pretending to make a record like that, but I did like the fact that he was using computers and loops yet somehow it sounded like a garage band—there's a real skill to that."
It also topped the charts in New Zealand and went Top 5 in the UK, also charting in the US and throughout Europe.
The Living End – The Living End
(Top for 1 week, October 19, 1998)
With a dynamic mix of punk and rockabilly, The Living End stormed out of Melbourne with the Top 5 double A-side single Second Solution/Prisoner Of Society as a rebellious calling card.
They developed into a massive live act, with fist clenchers Save The Day, Monday, Have They Forgotten, West End Riot, and All Torn Down.
The Living End, made in Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios, with producer Lindsay Gravina, had within a year sold close to 300,000 units. Even after soaring to the top, it stayed in the Top 50 for 63 weeks.
Taxiride – Imaginate
(Top for 1 week, October 25, 1999)
Melbourne band Taxiride’s first single Get Set was the signpost: with a sitar intro that broke into West Coast harmonies, off they went: “Get set everybody, we’re on our way to meet you…”
It was used before soccer matches, in the Hollywood movie Election, a tourist ad for Melbourne, and for Village Cinemas.
“But it was actually about Taxiride,” band member Jason Singh told The Music. “We were ready to start our journey and we were excited although we didn't know what was ahead.”
What was ahead were eleven global executives (including Seymour Stein who signed Madonna) flapping open their cheque books.
Imaginate sold 200,000 copies around the world, opening the door for them to ARIA wins, double Platinum certifications, 80,000-strong crowds in France, Japanese fans hanging outside their hotel for ten days straight, chart success in America and radio and TV playlists in India.
Imaginate also had an abundance of hit material such as Everywhere You Go, Can You Feel, and Nothing In This World.
Killing Heidi – Reflector
(Top for 7 weeks, from March 2000)
Siblings Jesse and Ella Hooper from country Victoria had the songs and dreadlocks. Their svengali Paul Kosky was their investor, record label, publisher, producer and fashion stylist.
Reflector was fastest selling album in Australian music history, selling 350,000 copies, landing an ARIA for Album Of The Year and yielding hit singles Weir (#6), Mascara (#1) and Live Without It (#5).
Vanessa Amorosi – The Power
(Top for 1 week, April 10, 2000)
Long before she owned the Sydney Olympics, a 13-year old Vanessa Amorosi and her remarkable voice were impressing at shows in a Russian restaurant in outer Melbourne.
She signed her first record contract at 16, under the tutelage of execs Mark Holden and Jack Strom who rumouredly spent $350,000 to $500,000 on building up her art.
Major record companies turned her down, and new indie label Transistor took a chance and was rewarded when The Power sold 500,000 through the world.
She stormed the Sydney Olympics with global hit Absolutely Everybody and Heroes Live Forever. Afterwards, Italian superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli wanted to meet to suggest a duet and Barbra Streisand’s manager rang to give Strom his home number and told him to call if they needed assistance with the US market.
Bardot – Bardot
(Top for 1 week, May 8, 2000)
On the back of reality show Popstars on the making of a girl band, Bardot debuted at #1 and went double Platinum.
However as member Belinda Chapple revealed in her book The Girl In The Band: A Cautionary Tale the dramas backstage, the “ruthlessness” of the industry and being paid $33 a day, brought it to a crash.
george – Polyserena
(Top for 2 weeks, from March 11, 2002)
Brisbane band george started out in 1996 as a regular hippie jam band of guitars, harmonica and cello on the deck of a student drop-in.
On a whim they entered the National Campus Bands Competition and chose george as a name. They won the heats but lost out to Canberra’s 78 Saab.
They decided to keep going, developing a blend of blues, folk, and pop around the sublime songwriting and singing opera singer Maggie Noonan’s children Katie and Tyrone Noonan.
With songs as Special Ones, Breaking It Slowly, and Release picked up by triple j they expanded their live following. An early label collapse owing them $30,000 delayed their first album.
Festival Mushroom agreed to their demands for artistic control, and george went off to The Grove in Gosford, NSW, for two weeks to make the record.
It was a magic time, Tyrone said. "We were just trying to create the most original music that we could — that was the central aim of the project.”
Polyserena went gold in the first week and ultimately double Platinum for 150,000 sales.
Delta Goodrem – Innocent Eyes
(Top for 29 non-consecutive weeks, from March 31, 2003)
Delta Goodrem’s first manager Glenn Wheatley pulled off a great music triumph. He landed her a role in Neighbours (when the soap still mattered) as aspiring star Nina Tucker writing songs for her first album.
The show’s 1 million-per episode fell in love with 18-year old Goodrem and her songs. Five singles Born To Try, Lost With You, Innocent Eyes, Not Me Not I, and Predictable hit the top.
The album debuted at #1, staying there for 29 consecutive weeks (a record for an Australian) and selling 1.4 million here. World sales were 4.5 million. Goodrem’s success paved the way for generations of female singer songwriters who had her skills and ambition to identify with.
Jet – Get Born
(Top for 2 weeks, from May 17, 2004)
Their influences were blatantly showing on that first record, but the Melbourne band clicked right into the guitar revival happening around the world.
A swathe of killer riffs and teen anthems as Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Rollover DJ, Look What You've Done, Cold Hard Bitch, and Get Me Outta Here – delivered gloriously by Nick Cester’s “rock” voice – saw them expand from being a staple diet on triple j to global attention on iPod ads and The O.C. soundtrack.
Recorded in Los Angeles, some reviews sniffed at Get Born’s join-the-dots approach. But it went on to sell 5 million around the world. In Australia it was certified Platinum nine times and won 6 ARIAs, Top 20 in the UK and hit #26 in the US.
Talking about the record’s strong dose of attitude, Cester told Songwriting Magazine, “We were still really young then, we were excited and pretty naïve, I guess.
“But we were cocky and very much a gang. We had a good relationship with (producer) Dave Sardy… but it was us against him, us against the label, us against the managers.
“Maybe we didn’t need to be so aggressive with our opinions, but it was a bit of a defence mechanism at the time, because we were pretty overwhelmed with the situation that we’d found ourselves in.”
Missy Higgins – The Sound Of White
(Top for 4 weeks, from January 17, 2005)
For someone who was thrown into the deep end of the music scene, Melissa “Missy” Higgins rose to the challenge. A song the 17-year-old wrote for a class project, All For Believing, was sneakily sent off by her sister to triple j Unearthed.
An Unearthed concert had labels and managers gizzing over her. Among them was John Watson who heard the show on CD in his car and thought, “If this girl is halfway sane, I’m so doing this!”
But headstrong and free-spirited, Higgins insisted rather than ride her wave in, she stick to her plan to hitch-hike through Europe with her best mate after her school years ended.
Most labels wanting a record out by Christmas pulled out of the running at this news.
But to the sound of applause from the media, Watson encouraged her to go overseas and grow as a person. He threw some money for the trip and a portable studio to write. She signed management with him and headed off.
The plan didn’t work as expected. Higgins lost her guitar on a train in Spain, so only wrote one song. But more so, the Unearthed tape made its way to Los Angeles radio station KCRW, which broke Coldplay and Macy Gray.
Seven American executives, including the legendary Clive Davis, wanted to meet her, so she had to divert to the US on the way to and from Europe wearing her business cap.
The Sound Of White was recorded with producer John Porter. Aided with the singles success of Scar, Ten Days, and The Special Two, it was accredited 12x Platinum. It marked her as a ‘real thing’ songwriter whose subject matter reached a generation of women.
Gordi, Amy Shark, Gretta Ray, and Alice Skye were just some who were inspired by her.
Anthony Callea – Anthony Callea
(Top for 3 weeks, from April 4, 2005)
Ticked off by an 2004 Australian Idol judge for sounding “plastic”, Anthony Callea blasted back with a poignant cover of Celine Dion & Andrea Bocelli's The Prayer.
It gave him runner-up on the grand finale to Casey Donovan, and was fastest-selling single by an Australian act, occupying the penthouse slot for five weeks.
The album entered at #1 and helped with more singles Rain/Bridge Over Troubled Water and Hurts So Bad, went double Platinum. It allowed him to continue his career as a songwriter, music theatre performer and touring artist.
Natalie Bassingthwaighte – 1,000 Stars
(Top for 1 week, March 2, 2009)
Starting out in music theatre and a Neighbours stint as Izzy Hoyland, Natalie Bassingthwaighte made her name with electro-pop Rogue Traders. The single Voodoo Child was a hit in Australia, New Zealand, England, and Ireland.
That opened the door for her debut solo album to be written and made over three months in London, Los Angeles and Sweden. It debuted at #1 with two hit singles going Platinum. Bassingthwaighte used its success, and her dynamic personality, to expand her career.
Karise Eden – My Journey
(Top for 6 weeks, from July 2, 2012)
After suffering a traumatic childhood where she was fostered out because her single mother couldn’t cope and began self-harming, Karise Eden dropped out of school at age 12. A Janis Joplin documentary on TV shifted her priorities.
Winning a season of The Voice Australia in 2012, four singles occupied the ARIA Singles Chart Top 5 – not done since The Beatles in 1964 – while My Journey debuted at #1 and was certified double Platinum.
Flume – Flume
(Top for 1 Week on February 4, 2013)
Recognised globally as a future bass pioneer, Harley Streten’s composing career began at age 11 via a CD mixing and DJ program he found packaged in a box of Kelloggs' Nutrigrain.
His 15-track 49-minute debut was made on the first laptop he got. His stage name was adopted from the Bon Iver song. The album was certified double Platinum in Australia and helped him sell 40,000 tickets on his first tour.
Under guidance of manager and Future Classic founder Nathan McLay, it had a global release. The breakthrough and a Grammy win followed with 2016’s Skin.
Harrison Craig – More Than A Dream
(Top for 1 Week, July 1, 2013)
Already a Music Captain at Sandringham College in Melbourne, Harrison Craig’s mother enrolled him in the Victorian Boys Choir and started private voice lessons to increase his confidence.
Winning the second series of The Voice Australia where he was coached by Seal, decreased the stutter. The album went Platinum.
RÜFÜS DU SOL – Atlas
(Top for 1 week, August 19, 2013)
After the three members met at school (their wider audio-visual collective also came from family and school), RÜFÜS DU SOL told Speaker TV “We made songs we wanted to hear and we got lucky it connected with people.”
The title Atlas was apt. RÜFÜS DU SOL always had their eye on the world. Atlas (Sweat It Out) was made in Sydney but its tracks especially Desert Night and Sundream conveyed the spirit of exotic locations, with later albums made in Berlin and Los Angeles’ Venice Beach.
It was a good start to their journey to selling 750,000 tickets on their world tour last year.
Taylor Henderson – Taylor Henderson
(Top for 1 week, December 9, 2013)
Although finishing second in the fifth season of The X Factor Australia in 2013, Sony Music Australia gave him a deal anyway. The album debuted at #1 and quickly went Platinum.
The album contains his debut single Borrow My Heart along with ten versions of songs he did on the show, including those by Passenger, Mumford & Sons, and Rickie Lee Jones.
Chet Faker – Built On Glass
(Top for 2 weeks, from April 21, 2014)
Nick Murphy didn’t release the first Chet Faker album Built On Glass until 2014. But he’d already become public property two years earlier via an album with Flume, and seeing his viral cover of Blackstreet’s No Diggity used in a Super Bowl ad.
Built On Glass couldn't fail to strike. Based on the Motown and chill-out collections of his parents, it oozed emotion delivered through a weary voice.
He told Interview that he learned something from the album. “If you write really personal songs, people are going to ask you even more personal questions about them.
“Some person was like, ‘What’s the story behind To Me.’ It’s the most fucking personal song on the record—I’m not answering that. I’m not a jukebox.”
5 Seconds Of Summer – 5 Seconds Of Summer
(Top for 1 week, from July 7, 2014)
When One Direction started tweeting about new music from Sydney’s 5 Seconds Of Summer (5SOS) it was more than plugs because both shared London-based Modest Management, founded by biz veteran Richard Griffiths.
The UK media quickly sniffed out that ID own a share of London-based company 5SOS LLP. Its registered partners were the four 5SOSers and One Mode Productions, whose directors include 1D and Modest’s Griffiths and Will Bloomfield.
With such connections, 5SOS delivered their brand of power-pop on their first album, in particular the four singles She Looks So Perfect, Don't Stop, Amnesia, and Good Girls.
Matt Corby – Telluric
(Top for 1 week, March 21, 2016)
Released in 2015, Matt Corby’s first album was supposed to have come two years before. He’d gone to Los Angeles and cut 22 tracks. Then his sense of perfectionism kicked in and he scrapped the record and returned to Australia.
The strategy was to reboot himself as a musician who was in charge of every aspect of his skills. He told triple j this included living in a shared house in Brisbane “full of really interesting characters", learning new instruments from scratch, then six months of isolation in Tweed River, and renting a cottage in Berry, NSW with producer Dann Hume and friend Alex Henrickson.
The results, he said, were close to what he wanted, including, triple j reported, “the gospel-tinged Monday, oozing '70s jam Sooth Lady Wine (and) the ‘junktronica’ of Knife Edge.”
Huskii – Antihero
(Top for 1 week, February 21, 2020)
Wollongong-born Sydney-based rapper Huskii had one good reason why Antihero only had seven tracks and ran 19 minutes long: after spending two years “in and out of jail” he had little time to write more.
Jail time was just one result of a turbulent childhood when he lived in houses around NSW, separated from his siblings and exposed to violence, drug addiction and prostitution, with both parents spending time in jail. It also led to his own addiction and depression.
The title of the record: “Feeling an outcast all my life, I am drawn to anti-heroes.”
Antihero, he says, was the start of his return, when people began to love and support himself. On Ruin My Life he strutted, “It’s the fact I’m a GOAT!”
The Kid LAROI – F*ck Love (Savage)
(Top for 1 week, February 8, 2021)
Made up of four mixtapes, The Kid LAROI’s F*ck Love (Savage) used producers as Benny Blanco, Bobby Raps, Cashmere Cat, and Taz Taylor while the original tracklist had cameos from Lil Mosey, Corbin Smidzik, and his late mentor Juice WRLD.
A reissue had Machine Gun Kelly, Marshmello, Internet Money, and YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
If there was a theme on the album, it was "...the messy breakdown of a destructive relationship that didn't sound too great to start with.”
The Kid’s age of 17 years, 5 months, and 22 days when the record hit #1 in Australia made him the youngest solo artist to achieve it, and the second male First Nations act to top the chart after Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.
In the United States, F*ck Love debuted at #8 with 49.3 million streams that week, and eventually rose to #1.
Tones And I – Welcome To The Madhouse
(Top for 1 week, July 26, 2021)
Having become a grand wazoo with Dance Monkey, Toni Watson set out to prove on her first long player she was no novelty act.
She told MTV News it would be self-produced, emphasising "These songs are completely me and my own production. It's not swayed by other songwriters or by anyone that's trying to help me get a hit, because that's never been important to me."
The madhouse vibe came from the fact that Melbourne was a city with the most severe COVID-19 lockdowns.
"I couldn't record a lot of the time in Melbourne; I wasn't allowed to leave the house. The music I wrote before I had to stop, because of the really intense lockdown, was really weird!
“I wrote this song called Welcome To The Madhouse; I just wrote three or four really weird songs, that I'd never written like that before. I explained it like trying to pull inspiration from living groundhog day over and over again!"
Calum Hood – ORDER chaos ORDER
(Top for 1 week, June 23, 2025)
Being bassist with 5 Seconds Of Summer took Calum Hood from an unglamorous upbringing in Sydney’s western suburbs and an option of a professional career in soccer to a home in the Hollywood Hills and a reported fortune of US $20 million.
Already known for writing for other acts such as the Black Veil Brides and Makeout, ORDER chaos ORDER showed off a wider array of Hood’s interests, including new wave and alt-rock, and songs as Don't Forget You Love Me and Call Me When You Know Better. It debuted at #1 in Australia.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
