The passing this week of legendarily gravel-voiced rock and blues icon Joe Cocker has apparently struck an emotional chord among the music-listening public of Australia, as the late vocalist sends four of his albums to their ARIA Charts debuts this week.
Although not making a huge impact — Cocker's compilation records The Platinum Collection, The Anthology, The Best Of Joe Cocker and Greatest Hits Live stepped out at #75, #82, #88 and #95, respectively, so all well outside the top 50 — the new entries come in a week shy of literally any other debutant faces, save for Charli XCX and Sucker, which makes its first appearance in the charts also more than halfway down the track, at #56.
Ed Sheeran (X), Taylor Swift (1989) and Michael Buble (Christmas) make up this week's top three once again, albeit slightly shuffled — Swift and Buble drop a spot each to #2 and #3 respectively, while Sheeran leapfrogs them both to retake the throne. AC/DC's Rock Or Bust sits steadily at #4, just ahead of Human Nature's Jukebox, which rounds out the top five in the full-length stakes.
It wasn't much more turbulent over on the Singles Chart, where the top ten songs this week were the top ten songs last week, in a slightly different order; Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk (#1), Aron Chupa's I'm An Albatraoz (#2), the Hilltop Hoods' Cosby Sweater (#6) and Peking Duk's Take Me Over (#10), featuring SAFIA, are all incumbent in their positions.
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The only two new singles on the chart this week come way down the line — Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me enters somewhat belatedly at #80, while Big Sean and E-40's I Don't Fuck With You scrapes in at #100 — but there's big upwards momentum for more than a few of the year's more buzzworthy tracks: Sam Smith's Stay With Me is back at #20 after rising 18 spots, Sia's Chandelier is up more than 20 places to #27, George Ezra's Budapest is up 11 spots to #31, Pharrell Williams' Happy enjoys a healthy 14-spot bump to #35, and Sheeran's Sing leaps massively from #91 to #45.
Meanwhile, the midpoint of the chart is made up of former top-five hits making big movements: Iggy Azalea's Fancy, featuring Charli XCX, is back inside the top 50, hitting #49 from #88 last week; Peking Duk's breakthrough cut High, featuring Nicole Millar, makes a 49-spot improvement to warp from #99 to #50; and German indie-poppers Milky Chance and Stolen Dance are up to #51, from #75 last week.
The week also saw relatively large upwards leaps for full-lengths from the Hilltop Hoods (Walking Under Stars is up eight places, to #10), The Eagles (Selected Works: 1972-1999, up nine spots to #14), Jimmy Barnes (30:30 Hindsight, up seven spots to #18), Chet Faker (Built On Glass, up nine spots to #21) and Angus & Julia Stone, back inside the top 50 with their self-titled LP with a nine-place jump to #43.
