Newly released music struggling to make it to top of Australian charts

Australians are in the midst of a nostalgic affair with music stars of yesteryear, but it’s making it tough for new artists to crack this charts. Here are the songs we’re listening to on repeat.

It’s never been tougher to turn music fans on to new tunes as Australians remain wedded to the old stuff they love.

Just 16 records released in 2023 made the ARIA Top 100 albums for the year while 26 songs launched in the previous 12 months muscled their way into the Top 100 singles.

Even Swifties lapped up more of their queen’s back catalogue with 1989 Taylor’s Version, released in late October, trumping her most recent original studio album Midnights which launched in late 2022, to claim No. 1 on the 2023 top 100 records.

Taylor Swift was a huge hit-maker in Australia in 2023. Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Miley Cyrus landed at No. 1 on the Top 100 singles with her inescapable hit Flowers, released back in January 2023. But fans were also playing a lot of her 2009 smash hit Party in the U.S.A. last year with its finishing at No. 69 in the top 100 songs.

The enduring popularity of the Wrecking Ball pop star and her music signals the generation gap which once divided young and old music lovers has narrowed in the streaming era.

“On the family road trip, Mum and Dad are as into having Flowers on the playlist as their daughters. Miley is now a cross generational artist for those who grew up with Hannah Montana and stayed for Party in the U.S.A.,” said one chart pundit.

Fleetwood Mac and their Rumours album is also a soundtrack for the whole family sharing a streaming account or record player.

An album released way back in 1977 finished 2023 at No. 26 on the top 100 albums and No. 13 on the vinyl chart.

Miley Cyrus’s song Flowers was a smash hit.

Fleetwood Mac is beloved by countless Aussies.

The beloved single Dreams has remained a fixture on the annual top 100 sinceTikTok user DoggFace went viral back in 2020 with the song soundtracking him skateboarding down the road while chugging cranberry juice.

And this year it was joined by Go Your Own Way, another hit from that iconic album, at No. 96.

TikTok has shown that Gen Z is era agnostic when it comes to the music they will embrace.

Take the Goo Goo Dolls big ballad Iris which enjoyed its first flush of success 25 years ago as the featured song for the Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan film City Of Angels.

The post grunge hit became a viral smash after one popular creator uploaded a hilariously over-the-top emotional performance of the track in 2022, inspiring millions of copycat versions on the platform and sending Iris nuts on streaming; it eclipsed one billion streams on Spotify a few months later.

The Goo Goo Dolls will be counting on those new adopters to front up early when they open for Matchbox Twenty on their Australian tour next month.

“Nobody’s making money selling records,” frontman John Rzeznik said as the band revelled in their viral revival.

Sir Elton John has multi-generational appeal. Photo: Jim Dyson/Redferns

“Now the game seems to be getting on playlists and getting sucked into algorithms that get you more streams and I’m like, okay … that seems to be the bigger business that we’re involved in now.”

The plethora of greatest hits compilations on the 2023 end-of-year chart – 16 compilations and just one of them a “new” release – also demonstrates how much the game has changed in the streaming era.

Australian music fans have been playing a lot of old The Weeknd, Elton John, Eminem, Foo Fighters, Eminem, Katy Perry, ABBA. INXS, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nicki Minaj.

They played Post Malone’s first “hits” compilation Diamond Collection (No. 27) more than his latest studio album Austin, released in July and landing at No. 100 on the year-end chart.

Stephen Green, the publisher and CEO of themusic.com.au, said while best-ofs have always loomed large in the Australian charts, they remain rusted onto the ARIA top 50 in the streaming era because of how album “streams” are counted.

“Nothing (new) on the albums chart is ever going to have a chance against a best of album, because of the way they are calculated,” he said.

Australian music fans have been playing a lot of old ABBA hits.

“They lop off the top two streamed songs on the album and then add together the rest of the songs’ streams and average them,” Green explains.

“So if you’re an Australian act like Spacey Jane and you released a new album and have had two singles off that album – which are going to be the most played songs that people are listening to – they don’t count.”

The fact that not one New Australian song or album featured in the 2023 Top 100s has been a sore subject for local industry gatekeepers since the charts were released last week.

The highest charting single by an Australian artist was the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s global smash Stay (No. 36), which was released in July 2021, followed by Vance Joy’s Riptide (No. 52), a song that turned 10 last year.

While ARIA and the labels they represent expressed “frustration” at the lack of new Aussie music breaking through, industry observers all agree there has been a sharp downturn in investment in signing emerging local talent or backing them with the big marketing budgets which global stars like Swift, Post Malone or Harry Styles command.

But the end of year charts also point to the next big genre to dominate Australian listening in coming years and that’s country music, with Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Zach Bryan finishing the year with multiple albums and songs in the top 100.

Originally published as Newly released music struggling to make it to top of Australian charts