NEWS WRAP

* After his little triumph at last week’s ARIA Awards, at which he took home the pointy prize for Best Adult Contemporary Album, Mister Josh Pyke (he of the guitar boat) has announced a series of live dates throughout New South Wales and Victoria through January and February. Details from Josh’s OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
* She’s taken her sweet time getting it together, but after preferring to let things happen organically, It Takes Two winner and Australian TV presenter Erika Heynatz has announced that she’ll release her debut single and album through EMI early in the new year. The single ‘Kingdom’ is set for a February release, while Erika’s album ‘Erika’ (how she chose that we’ll never know) is set for an instore appearance later in the year.
* The X Factor finalists were only there for a week, and they’ve lost the top spot on the UK singles chart this week with their cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘You Are Not Alone’. In their place is another charity single from UK comedian Peter Kay (responsible for the cover version of ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’ for Red Nose Day two years back and a host of animated icons.
* Elsewhere in the UK top ten this week, there’s a debut for Rihanna’s ‘Russian Roulette’ at No.6 and Susan Boyle scores some sweet chart love with ‘Wild Horses’.
* Further down the UK singles chart and it seems the Brits can’t get enough of Lady Gaga, with a selection of the songs from her new ‘Fame Monster’ set entering the top 100. Along with ‘Bad Romance’ (No.5), Gaga also charts with ‘Telephone’ (No.30), ‘Paparazzi’ (No.66), ‘Monster’ (No.68), ‘Poker Face’ (No.74), ‘Alejandro’ (No.75), ‘So Happy I Could Die’ at No.84 and ‘Dance In The Dark’ at No.89.
* Over on the UK albums chart, it’s all about Susan Boyle. And though she debuted at No.1 in Australia with more than 20,000 copies of her debut album sold in it’s first week of release, in the UK, you simply add another zero to the end – oh and more than double that. In excess of 410,000 copies of Susan’s album passed through the registers last week, making it the fastest selling album in the UK so far this year.
* And finally, new singles to Australian radio this week include the Hayley Warner track ‘Good Day’, Sarah Blasko’s new single ‘Hold On My Heart’, The Sundance Kids’ ‘Burn So Bright’ and Green Day’s ‘East Jesus Nowhere’. Universal Music has also taken out Demi Lovato’s new single ‘Remember December’, La Roux’s ‘Quicksand’

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