Lady Gaga‘s ‘Hair’ debuts at #20 in Australia making it her fourth single to currently inhabit our Aussie Top 20 this week. Ahead of the new Born This Way promo track are its slightly more established sister singles: ‘The Edge of Glory’ (#12), ‘Judas’ (#15) and ‘Born This Way’ (#18). It’s a similar feat over in the UK where Gaga became the first female artist since Ruby Murray in 1955 to have four singles simultaneously chart in the UK Top 20. The line up there reads: ‘The Edge of Glory’ (#6), ‘Judas’ (#8), ‘Hair’ (#13) and ‘Born This Way’ (#16). Over in the US, ‘The Edge of Glory’ debuted at #3 on Wednesday – with over 266,000 first-week downloads – to become Gaga‘s tenth consecutive Top 10 smash in her home country.
The Born This Way album officially hits stores worldwide today but unbeknownst to most Aussie fans, the physical copies of both standard and special editions were rushed to retailers last Friday. I found out about its early arrival on Twitter just as I pulled into my driveway, and you better fucking believe that I slammed my gears in reverse and sped to the shopping mall the very next minute. This tweet by my gurl Pop Trash Mike pretty much paints the picture. Cannot wait to see what kind of record breaking stratospheric first-week sales this album pulls.
Wynter Gordon‘s ‘Til Death’ rose to #19 this week to finally cracked the Aussie Top 20 this week. Gurl, this is still far from acceptable. Given that ‘Dirty Talk’ went platinum and held the #1 spot for three weeks when it’s not even half the song this quality jam is, it really is far from acceptable. What are we not doing right? Look out for Wynter‘s album – With The Music I Die – which is due in Australia on 24 June. I know I wrote that it was retitled to Still Getting Younger, as per her manager’s tweets but Ms Wynter changed her mind in the last minute and stuck with With The Music I Die. No questions asked.
Rihanna‘s ‘California King Bed’ jumps to a new peak of #8 on our Aussie charts this week, making this her 14th Top 10 smash in this country. The current Loud album has already delivered two #1 smashes for Ri – ‘Only Girl (In The World)’ and ‘S&M’ – equaling the chart feat of her last commercial success: Good Girls Gone Bad (who also peaked at #2 and spawned two #1 Aussie hit singles).
Havana Brown‘s ‘We Run The Night’ is perched at #11 this week. I feel a pang of guilt for missing the video premiere and now I feel like it’s too late to blog about it. But seriously, y’guys, it’s the hottest Aussie pop music video I’ve seen in a long time. We know Zoe Badwi‘s capable of bringing the heat but this, my friends, is a certified muhfuggin’ video vixen:
Other Aussies in the Top 40 this week include The Potbelleez with ‘From The Music’ (#21) and Stan Walker‘s future smash ‘Loud’ (#36).
Simple Plan and Natasha Bedingfield‘s ‘Jet Lag’ debuts at #37 in Australia this week, making this Tash’s first Aussie chart entry since ‘I Wanna Have Your Babies’ flopped at #50 in 2007. Holy shit, I haven’t realised how much quality singles have been swept over us. I mean, her last two albums Pocketful of Sunshine and Strip Me aren’t even released here. Who does that any more these days? In a digital music era where it could be so easy to make your art more accessible to more people, why would you restrict a release? Bitch, even if you had no interest in promoting it here, at least let your fans support you by making it available on iTunes. Let’s see if they’re planning to let us have the upcoming repackaged Strip Me Away album. Maybe they’ll tack ‘Jet Lag’ on for the local release?
Katy Perry‘s ‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)’ debuts at #40 this week. To me this whole era is already done. It was done after she released the title track and after she finished touring Australia but y’know, I recognise that the bitch is hot right now and people are still living for its releases. If there’s one thing Katy showed me with her last single ‘E.T.’, it’s that she’s capable of making singles number four and five an event to look forward to. Whether she’s repackaging it as a new remix or launching a cute geek chic cover art, she knows how to keep it entertaining.
Black Eyed Peas ‘Don’t Stop The Party’ debuts at #44 this week. I hadn’t even realised that this hadn’t entered the Top 50 before today. That’s how irrelevant The Beginning era has been for me. There are days where I go back and revisit The E.N.D. and come away fulfilled by how well put together that record is, but I don’t see myself wanting a sequel. Their brand of robo urban has been done and right now, there are too many folks coming for that sound. Y’guys, it’s time to re-engineer and morph your sonics.
Jessie J‘s Who You Are rises to a new peak of #8 in Australia this week, as predicted. The international smash ‘Price Tag’ is still clinging onto our Top 5 while the latest single ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ soars to #16.
Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi‘s Rome project debuts at #38 in Australia. The big thrill for me about this release is seeing all the innovative efforts the label has gone about with spreading the word. There was a live album stream happening at a coffee stand in Sydney, there were various teasers and trailers created online. The whole art direction is captivating and it seem to really complement the music. I’m excited for them.
Jennifer Lopez almost has two hits in the UK Top 20. The supreme hit ‘On The Floor’ clings on at #10 while the latest release ‘I’m Into You’ climbs up to #21. Meanwhile, her Love? album tumbles down to #24 in the UK and #18 in Australia this week. It’s already done better than what a lot of people had expected. I mean, opening to 83,000 first-week sales in America and second-week sales of 33,000 isn’t that bad, right? It’s not legendary standards but then again, neither is this album. I think if she actually follows through by officially releasing ‘Papi’ and ‘(What Is) Love?’ while dropping the various promo videos she’s filmed for the other album tracks, this project might achieve some extended relevance. Werk it out, mami.
Nicole Scherzinger‘s ‘Right There’ rockets to #27 on the UK charts this week. She also came correct for the dance community with a remix EP featuring mixes by Frankmusik, Wideboys and Sound of Arrow. Look, I’m glad to hear she’s launching a different edition of Killer Love in America but bitch, you better put out the title track as a single and deliver some video vixen realness with it. The arena-sized glamazon rock schtick she’s got going with RedOne is so bloody good.
Beyonce‘s ‘Run The World (Girls)’ plummets to #42 and #45 in Australia and the UK respectively. It also slipped to #70 on the US Billboard Hot 100 but I’m confident the single is gonna hit back in a real way this week after this surge of interest generated by the video and televised performances on the Billboard Awards and Oprah. ‘Run The World’ is currently the third most downloaded music video on our Aussie iTunes.
Alex Gaudino and Kelly Rowland‘s ‘What A Feeling’ is currently #15 on our Aussie dance charts. Good news, it’s also the fourth most added new song to local radios this week – according to The Music Network. I’ve done my part to persuade the gays by recommending it to SameSame here. And speaking of me prescribing shit, I’ve also tipped them off on Mya‘s No H8 anthem ‘Love Is The Answer’. It’s just some of the small services I provide my community, apart from this weekly show on our nation’s only gay and lesbian radio station. [Editor's note: stop plugging or I'll start charging]
Kelly Rowland‘s success of a solo single ‘Motivation’ ploughs through to a new peak of #26 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Gurl, this is the biggest solo child of Destiny release (we are obviously not counting Beyonce) since 2007! The last smash these children served in the Hot 100 was LeToya Luckett‘s 2009 single ‘Regret’ peaking at #78. I mean, Kelly made an appearance there in the same year as a feature artist on David Guetta‘s ‘When Love Takes Over’ but despite how huge that song was on the dance stratosphere, it only ever made #76 on this chart. Let’s not get into what happened to Michelle. It breaks my heart.
Jennifer Hudson‘s I Remember Me has yet to crack our Aussie Top 50 even though it’s currently the #1 R&B album on our iTunes charts. The diva extraordinaire has been posing the house down all over Melbourne yesterday and she’s headed up to Sydney now to do film more televised Aussie appearances. The two-disc deluxe edition of I Remember Me was only dropped in stores last week – featuring videos and bonus remixes – but whatever, never mind you hardcore fans who rushed out to support her the first week this album became available.
Robyn‘s ‘Call Your Girlfriend’ surges up to #18 on the US Dance/Club charts this week, making it the third Body Talk single to register a place in the dance Top 20. FYI – ‘Dancing On My Own’ made #3 and ‘Hang With Me’ managed to go #10. Her last album Robyn also yielded three American dance hits: ‘With Every Heartbeat’ (#5), ‘Handle Me’ (#5) and ‘Cobra Style’ (#7).
Chart snack of the week:
Fembot electronica trio Perfume‘s latest single ‘Laser Beams’ drops from #9 to #18 on the Japanese Billboard Hot 100 this week. That melodic hook and breakdown is giving me life right now. Check out the video here:
While we’re there, it’s nice to see that the biggest Anglophone singles in Japan are Lady Gaga‘s ‘Judas’ (#15) and Jennifer Hudson‘s ‘I Remember Me’ (#17)
Filed under: Chart Feed Tagged: Alex Gaudino, Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, Chart Feed, Danger Mouse, Havana Brown, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry, Kelly Rowland, Lady Gaga, Natasha Bedingfield, Nicole Scherzinger, Perfume, Rihanna, Robyn, Simple Plan, Stan Walker, The Potbelleez, Wynter Gordon
