Chart File: Why Country Albums Stay Longer, Especially At #1

Amber Lawrence

Amber Lawrence’s Suburban Cowgirl continues to boost the local country music scene.

Last week the set made a multi-chart debut, coming in at #1 in Top 20 Australian Country Albums, #1 on Australian Albums, and #18 on the Top 100 Albums.

This week it hangs steady at top spot on the country chart ratings and remains in the Top 10 in Australian Albums.

Her eighth album, which she describes as “my most joyful”, is about her 21 year journey from being a suburban Sydneysider captivated by country music’s story telling to six-time Golden Guitar winner.

Also notable in this week’s Australian Country Albums is how country music albums can last the distance.

Keith Urban’s High is in its 90th week. Released in September 2024, it topped the Australian Country Albums and #3 on Australian Albums. It reached #2 and #10 on the UK and US country charts.

Slim Dusty’s Gone Truckin’ compilation celebrates 88 weeks alongside what would have been its creator’s 99th birthday. It still has juice: this week it hikes up to #14 from #15.

Of the 80 trucking songs he recorded, the set includes 24, including I’m Married To My Bulldog Mack, Bent-Axle Bob, No Good Truckin’ Man, and Dieseline Dreams.

On Gotta Keep Movin’, he sings “Now, I’m the sort of man who could never stay still/ Hey, the road is open an’ I’m rollin’ free, you see/ I feel so good as long as I’m movin’.”

The Lady Is A Truckie was written by Slim’s wife and manager Joy McKean. It’s about Toots – real name Thora Holzheimer – the first Australian woman to clock a million miles in a truck.

Anne Kirkpatrick – the music legend’s daughter – told Countrytown, “She was an amazing pioneer for women in the trucking industry, a legend in the trucking world and in Australian folklore. And she was a real character, doing that run from Cairns right up to Cape York.” 

Star Trucker, penned for him by singer songwriter Graeme Connors, was actually about how Dusty was a huge Star Trek fan. He had a huge memorabilia collection and regarded one of his personal highs being photographed seated at the controls of the starship Enterprise during an exclusive guided tour of the Star Trek set in Hollywood.

Other slow-burners in this week’s Top 20 Australian Country Albums are The Wiggles’ Wiggle Up Giddy Up! (66 weeks) climbing to #7 from #9

James Johnston’s Where You’ll Find Me is in its 43rd week, climbing to #2 from #4. Peaked at #1. It won Top Selling Album at the 2026 Country Music Awards of Australia. It peaked at #5 on the Australian Albums and cracked the UK.

The Wolfe Brothers’ Australian Made (41 weeks) is at #12, and Hayley Jensen’s Country Soul (41 weeks) is hanging there are #8.

Brad Cox’s Endemic Intelligence In Multiple Dimensions (37 weeks) climbing to #10 from #13. Showing off a wider and more modern sound, and his first for Warner Music, it earlier made #7 on the wider ARIA Album Chart.

Horseman and outback entertainer Tom Curtain’s one time chart topper Here’s To You made new fans by following its release with a massive six-month tour, which explains how it’s back in at #19 and marking its 39th year.

Wade Forster’s Gooseneck Party (slang for social gathering on the back of a Gooseneck Trailer) about the stories he learned from cowboys and cowgirls while growing up as a rodeo rider, sticks at #6 in its 33rd week. 

It previously peaked at #2. His first album The Breakout in 2022, generated 50 million streams, Countrytown reported.

John Williamson’s How Many Songs drops out of the Top 20 after 59 weeks.

Super Troopers

Just why country albums, both in Australia and abroad, keep senses working overtime, is attributed to a number of factors.

One is a loyal fan base, with acts particularly engaging fans with hard and regular performing and social media hyphy. Slim Dusty was the blueprint for this. His nine-month tours would take his band and he 48,280km (30,000 miles) to country towns and remote settlements no other artist visited then.

“We decided that we could do three months,” recalled McKean. “We started off on the 19th of September 1954, with £19 in our pockets. Anne was two, and we had gambled all we had except the house.”

Lengthy track listings is another reason for lengthy visits. Forster’s Gooseneck Party had 22-tracks, Cox’s Endemic Intelligence in Multiple Dimensions was a 15-tracker.

Troy Cassar-Daley’s live 50 Songs, 50 Towns from his massive 2019 tour, stretched it out to 50 tracks. Hits albums by Dusty, Williamson, and Lee Kernaghan ranged from 50 to 30 cuts.

The focus on physical formats like vinyl, CD, and cassettes, as well as merchandising is a strong asset. According to the Country Music Association’s 2025 Census an average fan at a festival spends $64 on merchandise.

That most local country acts have multi-generation followings.

Another reason for sales and chart slow-burns is country radio, ranging from national networks to community radio to online ventures. They’re increasing in numbers because of the country music boom but generally thought to be 30.

Dusty ticked all the boxes on the list. He was working on his 106th album when he died at home in St Ives, Sydney, in 2003 after a battle with lung and kidney cancer. He was 76.

That 23 years after his death sees him have two entries in this week’s Top 20 Australian Country Album Chart is a testament to his crowd connection. The second is Gone Bush, which climbs to #9 from #14.

It’s not surprising then that a Dusty title also hit a milestone as longest stay. In 2018, ARIA announced that on its July 16 chart edition, The Very Best Of Slim Dusty reached 1,000 weeks on the Country Albums Chart. The figure scaled up to 1,150 by 2021.

It was followed by Wide Open Spaces by The Chicks (610 weeks), The Essential Johnny Cash (605 weeks), and True Blue – The Very Best Of John Williamson (565 weeks).

Staying At The Top

Dusty’s Very Best Of also spent 354 weeks at top sot on the ARIA Country Albums Chart.

But in the wider ARIA Album Chart, Shania Twain’s Come On Over holds the record for longest running country album in Australia. It spent 20 non-consecutive weeks in 1999.

In Australia, Come On Over topped the Albums Chart for 20 weeks and was the best-selling album of 1999, selling a million units that year.

It was certified 25× Platinum by ARIA) for earning over 1.75 million album-equivalent units with a stay of 65 weeks. Globally, it sold 40 million, half of that in the United States, ranked as best-selling studio album by a woman, best-selling country album, and one of the best-selling albums of all time.

To be expected, country-pop crossover pin-up hero Taylor Swift has been creating havoc on the ARIA chart, rewriting the rules. She’s snapped up 14 chart topping long players in this country, a record for any female solo artist.

How pressed can Aussie Swifties be? For example in 2024, after the release in April of The Tortured Poets Department, she was the first ever to populate the Top 10 of singles.

Her albums stay at top spot has been phenomenal. Here is the list:

• Midnights (2022): 15 weeks

• 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023): 13 weeks

• 1989 (2014): 9 weeks

• The Life Of A Showgirl (2025): 7 non-consecutive weeks

• Tortured Poets Department (2024): 6 non-consecutive weeks

• Folklore (2020): 4 weeks

• Red (2012): 3 weeks

• Reputation (2017): 2 weeks

• Speak Now (2010): 1 week

• Lover (2019): one week

• Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021): 1 week

Top 10 Longest Stayers In US Billboard Chart

Stateside, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time (2023) is the country album to stay the longest at #1 on the wider Billboard 200, notching up 19 non-consecutive weeks, in 2024.

Wallen toppled Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind with 18 non-consecutive weeks in 1991/92.

Of the other eight:

• Billy Ray Cyrus’ Some Gave All (1992): 17 weeks

• Taylor Swift’s Fearless (2008): 11 weeks.

• Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (2021): 10 weeks

• Garth Brooks’ The Hits (1994): 8 weeks

• The Eagles’ Hotel California (1994): 8 weeks

• Taylor Swift’s Red (2012)” 7 weeks

•  Garth Brooks’ The Chase: 7 weeks

• Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (2010): 6 weeks

On the Billboard Country Music Charts, Johnny Cash made it into the Guinness World Records in 2014. 

Cash died in 2003. Posthumously, Out Among The Stars debuted at #1 on April 12. He became the first solo artist to have a series of chart topping albums on that specific chart over 50 years (actually 50 years and 91 days).

He’d first reached #1 on January 11, 1964, with Ring Of Fire (The Best Of Johnny Cash). 

He overtook Merle Haggard (48 years 192 days), Dolly Parton (43 years 156 days), Kenny Rogers (42 years 319 days), and Willie Nelson (41 years 228 days).

This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body