All hail Taylor Swift! That’s how Australians reacted to TayTay in 2023, as the pop superstar dominated the year-end charts.
Swift reigned supreme on the 2023 ARIA End Of Year Albums Chart, published Friday, Jan. 1, with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) taking out top spot.
The fourth re-recorded album from Swift’s repertoire, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) logged nine weeks at No. 1 on the national chart last year, the longest consecutive streak of any LP.
1989 (Taylor’s Version) is just the start of Swift’s sweep. The “Shake It Off” singer bagged five of the top 10 albums in the land Down Under, including the runner-up spot with Midnights, ARIA confirms, and 10 of the top 50.
Following a two-week stay at No. 1 in 2023, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) finishes the year at No. 7 overall; Lover is at No. 8; and the original version of 1989 is at No. 9. Also impacting the tally is Reputation (No. 11), Folklore (No. 12), Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 29), Evermore (No.36) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (No. 46).
Swift is accustomed to the high life. Midnights was the No. 1 album of 2022, meaning Swift has had the best-selling album in Australia for two-straight years. A third isn’t out of the question. Swift has two more re-recorded album projects on the horizon (though release dates haven’t been announced), and her The Eras Tour will storm into Australia in February for seven stadium shows across Sydney and Melbourne.
Canadian R&B star The Weeknd’s The Highlights completes the annual albums podium with his career retrospective, The Highlights, ahead of Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time and SZA’s SOS, respectively.
The country comeback is in full swing as Luke Combs lands three titles in the top 25: This One’s For You at No. 14, Gettin’ Old at No. 17 and What You See Ain’t Always What You Get at No. 24.
Meanwhile, U.S. artists lock-up the four best-selling singles of 2023, a list led by Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” a single that stood tall atop the ARIA Singles Chart for 12 weeks during the calendar year. Just eight songs have spent more than time at No. 1, ARIA reports. Tones and I’s “Dance Monkey” remains the all-time ARIA Chart leader, notching 24 weeks at the top in 2019-20.
Slotting in at No. 2 on the 2023 ARIA End Of Year Singles Chart is country star Morgan Wallen with “Last Night,” ahead of SZA’s “Kill Bill” and Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” respectively, while English artist PinkPantheress finishes the year at No. 5 with “Boy’s A Liar.”
“Congratulations to all the artists who dominated 2023, but particularly to Taylor, who has completely reset the narrative for what a solo artist can accomplish,” comments ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd. “She is a truly once-in-a-lifetime artist, storyteller, performer and businessperson. Similarly, Miley Cyrus’ incredible achievement on the Singles Chart over the past year – solidified at No. 1 on the 2023 Singles Chart – is cause for celebration… as is women at the top of both the Singles and Albums Charts for 2023.”
The dearth of homegrown artists on both lists, however, is no cause to celebrate. Just four Australian albums cracked the top 100 this year, led by INXS hits collection The Very Best (at No. 58), and only three Australian-made singles impacted the top 100, none of which were released in 2023. The best-placed Australian track was The Kid Laroi’s 15-times platinum 2021 collaboration with Justin Bieber, “Stay.”
“It’s frustrating, but the data provided by these charts is an unbiased view of how Australian audiences consume music, and we need to use this data to understand we have a very urgent, very complex problem to solve,” adds Herd. “We need to address the damaging lack of data about contemporary music.
Help is on the way. With renewed support for Ausmusic from the federal government and various state governments, the establishment of Music Australia, Sound NSW, and the Centre for Creative Workplaces, notes Herd, the industry is optimistic that “we can change the narrative this time next year.”