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GAGA SLAMS AUSSIE NO.1

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Lady Gaga has broken Australian sales records with her new single ‘Born This Way’ according to an ARIA press release this afternoon. The track, the first from her forthcoming album of the same name, has become the first track of 2011 to debut in the No.1 position, clocking up sales so mighty that we have to look back more than six years to find a challenger.
She’s smashed the Australian one week digital sales record. And according to ARIA’s release, ‘Born This Way’ has recorded the highest number of sales for a No.1 single since Anthony Callea’s ‘The Prayer’ back in 2004 and is the highest selling single by a non-Australian since Elton John’s ‘Something About The Way You Look Tonight/Candle In The Wind’ following the death of Princess Diana back in 1997. Presumably they’re talking highest first-week sales.
All very impressive, yes. But ARIA’s crowing of the brilliant sales news, they still won’t divulge just how many copies were sold.
The full ARIA top 50s are revealed at 6:30pm AEST at www.ariacharts.com.au.

Another great auspOp post from www.auspOp.com.au Australia's first stop for pop!

 

Comments

  1. Hey Grant,

    We’ve been holding out hope of receiving the ARIA chart information again, but it would appear that the transparency that you hope for is looking less and less likely.
    We in turn hope to be able to once again bring you the information.

    The auspOp team

  2. #4 I couldn’t agree more – looking at the figures of the time, it’s indeed amazing that the now iconic The Prayer, which was in the charts for months & still sometimes re-appears apparently wasn’t the highest selling of the decade. It’s amazing that any tracks could overtake it without appearing in any chart or receiving the constant mentions that single attracts.
    Still a ‘chart’ where tracks released in 2009 are ‘competing’ with tracks released in 2001 can’t be taken too seriously! There wasn’t even agreement about when the ‘decade’ started. I doubt that any artist was giving it any thought whatsoever.
    You apparently doubt the figures given by Paul Cashmere, Sony and even ARIA itself, where I’m more inclined to doubt the ARIA chart and awards system and I’m not alone. In 2005 ARIA was even boycotted by the Brazin group, who didn’t provide them with sales figures for 6 months. Casey Donovan’s Idol single was one of the first major download sellers, as was The Prayer – but those sales weren’t counted. The system is confused and out-dated, as others suggested and that was especially true during the transition time of the mid 2000s. It’s become more and more cloudy recently and much of the original explanatory information disappeared.
    The site was in desperate need of up-dating but in this computer age, Australia needs to develop not a new site, but a more accurate and transparent system, minus the ‘sampling’ and extrapolation.
    Of course, that’s if so much store is to be set on charts. Many of the biggest artists in the world don’t even release singles here.
    AusPop your Chartwatch segment was really interesting and I hope you start to get the information again.

    Grant

  3. sheeesh, what’s with the vitriol #4?

    I merely clarified figures from the source you mentioned –

    The article is unfortuantely unarchived, but the complete article, including the original undercover link is posted on the Delta Goodrem forum

    http://forums.deltagoodrem.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=130073&view=findpost&p=2741068

    And #4, a career made on one single….? That sort of insulting remark does Guy himself no good and in fact is actually harmful, as it simply taints the reputations of the decent ‘Guy fans’.

  4. To #4 – To further clarify, the actual cut off date for the End of Year charts for 2004 finished on 19th Dec 2004, hence for the end of year position only the 3 days of sales (to Sat 18th – Aria charting sales cut off date)of 34,000 for The Prayer that were sold during the broken embargo were counted. The first full week of sales commencing 19th Dec (the official release date)to 25th Dec 04 (charting periods back then were Sun-Sat) – Callea sold “147,000” copies as Taz said this was widely reported by the well respected Undercover music journalist Paul Cashmere. The sales for charting period to 26th Dec 04 were actually counted in the 2005 End of Year Charts.

  5. Well Taz, I can’t validate whether that is what Undercover said, as their archives only seem to go back to 2006, but I do know they combined the early release and first full week sales for Damien Leith’s debut album in 2006, so I assumed they did for The Prayer as well. Amazing if The Prayer did sell that much in the first 10 days that it didn’t land up being the highest selling song of the last decade. I guess Angels Brought Me Here sustained its sales better than The Prayer to gain that honour. So with Anthony’s main recording success being with his first single and album and not getting the honour he was expecting of highest selling song of the last decade, I guess he still has one record he can savour. 10 days of awesome sales for his first single. You can build a career on that.

  6. just a little clarification re the statement made by #4 – I quote the article from Paul Cashmere

    **Anthony Callea Beats Guy Sebastian
    by Paul Cashmere

    29 December 2004

    Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea has topped the first week sales record held by Guy Sebastian in 2003.

    Callea’s ‘The Prayer’ in it’s first full week of sales sold over 147,000 units in addition to the 34,000 sold in the previous week after being on sale for just 3days.**

  7. Don’t think it sold anywhere near 100,000 actually. There is a site now that shows the sales on itunes from around the world each day, and it shows that Born This Way sold 25,066 on Australia on itunes in its first week in the charts:

    http://www.digitalsalesdata.com/displayTrack.php?artist=Lady+GaGa&title=Born+This+Way

    Doubling the sales figures from there to allow for itunes market share in Australia (around 45 to 50percent of downloads in Australia according to chart experts) would put its sales in Australia last week at around 50,000. Which would make its gold accreditation round about right. Great sales, but hardly competing with the 120,000 plus sales that both Guy and Shannon got with their debut singles in their first week on the charts. As to Anthony Callea Emily, Undercover combined the sales for the early release of The Prayer (it was released two or three days early) with its first full week’s figures to get that 140,000+ figure. If the Prayer had sold more than 140,000 units in its first week it would have finished way higher than #82 on the 2004 End of Year Chart.

    http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-of-year-charts-top-100-singles-2004.htm

    I believe it sold around 55,000 in the first few days, which is what ARIA counted for the 2004 End Of Year Chart, and around 90,000 in its first full week on the charts which was counted towards its tally for the 2005 End Of Year Chart where it came in as the highest selling song.

    As to why ARIA are no longer giving any sales data to the media I would say it is to continue the idea that position is everything on the charts. While single sales are soaring, and a #1 on the singles chart really is a big thing, album sales have dropped substantially over the last few years, and at times during the year they are downright abysmal. When an album can get to #1 with around 3,5000 sales as one did last year and yet at another time of the year you need over 20,000 just to get into the top 5 like you do around xmas it shows that being #1 means nothing really. It’s not going #1 that counts, its where you chart at various times of the year that does. ARIA doesn’t like people to know that. They like people to make a fuss of #1 albums even when they hardly sell anything.

  8. Aria only have it certified as GOLD this week, it should be Platinum at least if it shifted 100,000+ anyway…Hmmm….Lately #1 singles seem to be up around 23,000 unit mark. Be interesting to see…With the single smashing records though, the album comes out a bit late…wonder if they may move it forward.

  9. Should we really be comparing single digital sales to physical format cd singles back in yesteryear?

  10. They should just get over it, UK & US both give out sale figures, ARIA needs to get with the times imo.

  11. According to the site, it’s already been certified gold so that indicates that it has sold around 35,000 + already.

  12. Hey Anonymous,

    Yes, unfortunately we reckon that ARIA’s claim that they’re updating their website and therefore the figures are unavailable is another way of them saying that they’re not happy that sales numbers are getting out and that they’re tightening the reigns.
    ARIA hasn’t shared sales info so far this year, hence the lack of our Chart Watch segment each Monday.

    The auspOp team

  13. Hey Mr Paj,

    We think it’s highly doubtful, but who knows what kind of information Universal might impart with us tomorrow after the sales result.

    The auspOp team

  14. Anthony Callea’s sales were over 140,000 in the first week of release,according to Undercover back in 04′. It will be interesting to see what Gaga’s sales are, we are all missing your weekly chart wrap aren’t Aria sharing sales info anymore?

    Emily