Criminal record bullets Jimmy Barnes into history

Jimmy Barnes’s 17th album My Criminal Record debuted at No 1 making him the artist with the most chart-topping album releases.

Jimmy Barnes at an album-signing session at Northland Shopping Centre in Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty

Rock singer-songwriter Jimmy Barnes has created Australian music history by becoming the artist with the most chart-topping album releases since ARIA began calculating weekly reports in 1983.

At the weekend, his 17th album, My Criminal Record, made its debut at No 1, which took his career tally as a solo artist to 12 — one better than both American pop singer Madonna and Irish rock band U2. Central to his latest chart success were three events in Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra, where about 2000 fans queued for Barnes to sign CD and vinyl copies of the new album.

 

“One of the big in-stores we did was in Elizabeth, and literally person after person in that queue said to me, ‘We hope you know how much we love you, and how much this means to us that you’re telling your story,’ ” Barnes told The Australian. “That’s really moving. It’s great to have success and No 1 records — but more than anything, it’s good to have made a good record that people connect with, and can relate to.”

In an era when most artists earn high chart placements through streaming large quantities of their songs via the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, Barnes’s old-fashioned approach of taking physical products direct to his audience worked a treat.

“To be able to have 12 No 1s spanning four decades is a remarkable achievement,” said ARIA chief executive Dan Rosen.

“And this is not a ‘best of’; it’s new work. It underlines that he’s still a … relevant artist and still has a voice and a story that resonates with Australian music fans.”

While Barnes also reached No 1 on four occasions as frontman of rock band Cold Chisel, his first chart-topping album as a solo artist was his 1984 debut, Bodyswerve. When reminded of this, Barnes laughed and said: “In 1984, I didn’t know if I was going to make it to 1985,” referring to his appetite for self-destruction that was laid bare in two bestselling memoirs published in recent years.

My Criminal Record was the fourth album by an Australian artist to reach No 1 on the ARIA chart this year, following releases by Hilltop Hoods, Dean Lewis and Conrad Sewell.

“I don’t think this is a peak — I think it’s the start of a new climb,” Barnes said.

“As good as I feel about this, it just indicates that I’ve got to work really hard, because the best work I’m going to do is still inside me, and it’s got to come out.”