• Welcome to your Saturday edition of The Purge, which we’re kicking off today with the new single from Lukas Graham. You might remember the Danish band for their global smash ‘7 Years’, which topped the Australian charts back in early 2016 and went on to hit six times platinum, selling in excess of 420,000 copies locally. Now they’re back, armed with a new single called ‘Love Someone’. There’s not much information about the new track, apart from it being serviced to Australian media yesterday. Though one could safely assume that a third album is in the pipeline.
• Great news for Taylor Swift this week. With her ‘Reputation’ Australian tour fast approaching and her new single ‘Getaway Car’ impacting at Australian media yesterday, her label Universal has confirmed that the singer’s sixth studio album ‘Reputation’ has been certified double platinum, for sales in excess of 140,000 units. Taylor’s Australian visit is set to impact Optus Stadium in Perth on Friday October 19 before heading east for shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
• Continuing their parade of new release songs throughout the course of 2018, Set Mo have dropped another. ‘Down The Line’, featuring a vocal appearance from Cloud Control’s AJ Wright, dropped at digital service providers yesterday. “We met Al a couple of years ago when we had a studio in the same complex and Cloud Control were writing and finishing their second album,” the Set Mo boys explain. “We wanted to do a session forever and then finally a few months back we got in the studio and wrote ‘Down The Line’. We played a lot with sounds and tempos before getting to where the song is now.” The boys are set to kick off their national ‘Stamina Session’ tour at ANU in Canberra on Friday October 05.
• After bursting onto the scene earlier in the year with the sublime debut single ‘Kissing Boys’, Australia’s own Graace has signed to Sony Music and dropped a new single entitled ‘Last Night’. “‘Last Night’ came together while sitting at my piano one night, I realised I’d been writing about the same situation for years but with different people,” Graace explains. “I was managing to recreate the same scenarios in other relationships because I wasn’t fully in love with myself before committing to somebody else.” The track will feature (along with ‘Kissing Boys’) on her just-announced debut EP ‘Self Sabotage’, which is set for release on Friday October 26.
• You’ll be wanting a spoon of ‘Medicine’, the latest single from New Zealand pop darling Robinson, which dropped yesterday. ‘Medicine’ is the follow-up to her pop smash ‘Nothing To Regret’, which has achieved a dazzling platinum certification for sales in excess of 70,000 units. “‘Medicine’ is about not realising the weight of your actions and words until it happens to you,” she explains of the track. “It’s about having a taste of your own medicine.”
• Melbourne producer Swick has teamed up with Kota Banks for his latest single ‘Decisions’. It follows on from his tracks ‘1000 Shots’ and ‘Hydration’ and comes just weeks before he hits the decks on tour through Japan with Nina Las Vegas. The track, out now, will feature on Swick’s upcoming mixtape ‘Court Composer’.
• Irish artist Hozier is back with new music in the form of his just-released EP ‘Nina Cried Power’. The affable star first rose to fame via his breakout global smash ‘Take Me To Church’ and experienced further success with his track ‘Someone New’ two years later. The title track also serves as the lead single. “The song was written sometime last year, my aim was to credit the actuality of hope, solidarity and love found in the human spirit at a time when their opposites were being given a mainstream platform 24/7,” Hozier explains. “The song started as a tongue-in-cheek inquiry into modern popular language regarding political awareness and grew from there.”
• Rising UK performer Tom Walker has announced the October 19 release of his debut album ‘What A Time To Be Alive’. The long player features Tom’s current single ‘Leave A Light On’, as well as a collaboration with Zara Larsson entitled ‘Now You’re Gone’. In other news for Tom’s local fans, he’ll be in the country later this month for a promotional visit. He’s set to be in Australia for the first time ever from September 18 to 21 for a series of media commitments.
• WA outfit San Cisco yesterday dropped their new track ‘When I Dream’. The new song is primed for radio during the warming months ahead and was given its premiere on Triple J on Thursday night. “We have been writing ‘When I Dream’ for a few years now,” frontman Jordi Davieson explains. “The early demos came from a period where we were super infatuated with the west coast sound of the 1970s, listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Brothers, Eagles etc. Lyrically it is one of my most honest and personal songs and it feels great to finally release it into the wild.” You can catch the band on tour alongside Ball Park Music and Ruby Fields in the coming weeks; they appear at the opening night of the Brisbane Festival at Riverstage tonight.
• Northern Irish outfit Ash will make their return to Australia later this year for a national tour. The band is set to play for audiences in all five main capital cities, kicking off at The Zoo in Brisbane on Tuesday November 13. From there it’s on to Adelaide (Fowlers Live on November 14), Perth (Rosemount Hotel on November 15), Sydney (Factory Theatre on November 17) and Melbourne (Corner Hotel on November 18). Metropolis Touring pre-sale tickets are on sale now until Tuesday morning at 9am. General tickets go live from 10am on Tuesday September 11.
• The recently announced RocKwiz Revue dates in Perth, Thirroul and Bendigo have officially sold out, so the gang have added second dates to cope with demand in both Perth and Thirroul. The run of shows with Julia and the gang kicks off the Newcastle’s Civic Theatre on November 16 before making its stop at Anita’s Theatre in Thirroul for two concurrent nights; November 17 (sold out) and November 18 (new show). The second Perth date takes over the Fremantle Prison on Friday November 30, the night prior to the already sold out show. Tickets for all remaining dates are on sale now.
• Brisbane indie outfit The Grates are back on the road; the original line-up reuniting and embarking on a ten year anniversary tour. The tour will see the band make stops at the Factory Theatre in Sydney (November 24), the Corner Hotel in Melbourne (December 07), the Rosemount Hotel in Perth (December 08) and The Tivoli in Brisbane (December 15). Tickets are on sale this Wednesday from 9am.
• And voting is about to get underway for the 2018 ARIA Awards. A voting panel of music industry professionals from across the country (including us) will cast their votes over a seven day period to determine who’ll walk home with the prestigious pointy gongs at this year’s ceremony. The 2018 ARIA Awards will take place in Sydney on November 28.
• Seven days. That’s how long the Benny Blanco single ‘Eastside’ (with Halsey and Khalid) spent atop the UK singles chart. It’s been overtaken overnight by the superstar pairing of Calvin Harris and Sam Smith; their single ‘Promises’ debuted at No.4 two weeks back, climbed to No.2 last week and is now top of the pops. They’re at No.1 ahead of Benny and George Ezra’s ‘Shotgun’. Beyond that, the Eminem show rolls into town. After the US rap superstar dropped his surprise new album last Friday, the songs from it pepper the UK top 100. No track debuts higher this week than ‘The Ringer’, which enters at No.4. But ‘Lucky You’ comes close (No.6 debut), as does ‘Fall’ (No.9 entry). They are, however, the only Eminem songs to debut in the UK top 100 this week. Sia, Diplo and Labrinth’s ‘Thunderclouds’ rumbles towards the top 20 (No.47 to No.22).
• Perhaps not surprisingly, Eminem’s ‘Kamikaze’ parachutes into the No.1 spot on debut this week, knocking the ‘Mamma Mia : Here We Go Again’ soundtrack from its perch. Idles also manage a top five debut with their latest long player ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’. The new Passenger album ‘Runaway’ also enjoys its time in the top ten sunshine, premiering at No.6, while further top ten debuts come courtesy of Kooks (‘Let’s Go Sunshine’ at No.9) and our own Troye Sivan (‘Bloom’ at No.10). US boyband Why Don’t We premiere at No.25 with their ‘8 Letters’ EP.
• If there’s one thing we know about the US, it’s that they don’t like letting their number one singles go quickly. And Drake’s latest single ‘In My Feelings’ is the latest enjoying an extended stay in top spot. This week it makes it eight weeks on the fly in top spot, with Maroon 5 and Cardi B again steady in positions two and three respectively. Great news for South Korean boyband BTS, whose latest single ‘Idol’ (with Nicki Minaj) debuts at No.11 (the only debut inside this week’s top 50).
• Ariana Grande premiered at No.1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart at this stage last week. Seven days on, she’s been displaced… and how. Her conquerors this week are South Korean boyband BTS, whose album ‘Love Yourself : Answer’ debuts at No.1. Travis Scott’s ‘Astroworld’ is steady in the No.2 spot, with Drake’s ‘Scorpion’ edging to No.3. Ariana’s down from No.1 to No.4. Ozuna’s ‘Aura’ enters the US album chart at No.7, while Alice In Chains just miss out with ‘Rainier Fog’, which lobs at No.12.
• And that’s it… That’s The Purge for your Saturday morning. But even though we’re done for now, know that we’ll be back at 5pm on the East Coast with our weekly look at the ARIA top 100s in ARIA Chart Watch! Catch you then.
TICKETS PLEASE
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 10 : Maroon 5 (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane)
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11 : Lily Allen (Nationally)
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11 : Ash (Nationally)
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11 : Ms Lauryn Hill (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane)
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 12 : The Grates (Nationally)
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 12 : Secret Garden Festival (Brownlow Hill)
Australia's first stop for pop!