Chartbitz:
Wednesday, November 4 2009
by Andrew Miller

This Is It
Gin vacates the Albums Chart summit after a solitary week just as her set is certified platinum. Her sales remain buoyant, but it is Michael Jackson who is back for an encore performance.

Out of the box This Is It returns Jacko to the top of the New Zealand charts while the film of the same name opens at #6 at the box office. It gives him a fourth posthumous #1 in 2009 and takes his overall chart-topping album tally to eight.

This Is It contains one ‘new’ song and some rarities among the hits in what would have been show order had his London dates gone ahead.

Sony has decided against issuing This Is It as an official standalone single, possibly denying Jackson a 9th #1 single.

Michael remains the third most capped albums artist of all time here. He rates just one spot behind Pink Floyd’s nine #1 albums in second place and four short of equaling U2’s 13-album #1 haul.
MJ does, however, become the first act ever to notch up four #1 sets in a calendar year: Thriller 25, Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson and now This Is It.

The New Singles
#20 Shapeshifter - Dutchies
Together 10 years and going somewhere they’ve never been before, Christchurch-formed drum n bass act Shapeshifter land their very first Top40 single. The week’s highest debut is from the act’s forthcoming The System Is A Vampire album. Out in a couple of weeks, it should bring their longplayer hits tally to four. Of course, Kiwi Shapshifter shouldn’t be confused with English act The Shapeshifters whose Lola’s Theme made #11 in 2004.

#33 Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
Yonkers NY-born 23-year-old Joanne Germanotta racks up her sixth hit single, Bad Romance new at #33. All feature on the 49-week #2 peaking The Fame set which is due for a makeover in the coming weeks. Lady GaGa’s biggest hit remains the 10-week chart-topper Poker Face from late last year and early this.

#34 Death Cab For Cutie - Meet Me On The Equinox
At #3 this week The Twilight Saga: New Moon soundtrack yields its first hit as Meet Me On The Equinox by Death Cab For Cutie joins the list at #34. It gives the band their very first hit single here.

#35 Leona Lewis - Happy
It’s second album time for 24-year-old The X-Factor winner Leona Lewis. Debut album Spirit and debut single topped both respective surveys. Happy, fresh at #35, precedes the new album, Echo, and sees the Londoner notch up a third New Zealand hit.

#36 Flight Of The Conchords - Hurt Feelings
Following last week’s #7 album entry I Told You I Was Freaky (#14 this week) The Flight Of The Conchords’s lead track Hurt Feelings debuts at #36. It gives Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement their first hit single, although their debut EP The Distant Future did peak at #8 on the Singles survey previously.

#40 Cobra Starship - Hot Mess
Gabe Saporta-led Cobra Starship land their second hit with the title track from their first New Zealand chart album. Anchoring the chart at #40, Hot Mess follows the #2 Good Girls Gone Bad (#25 this week).

The New Albums
#1 Michael Jackson - This Is It
See story above.

#4 Rod Stewart - Soulbook
He used to be one of us by marriage and he’s now charted albums here for 34 years. His May 1975 Smiler set may have only made #29, but it was the first of the now 26 charting albums London-born Scotsman Rod Stewart has had here. Among the tally are six #1 albums including his last appearance, October 2006’s Still The Same… Great Rock Classics Of Our Time. Rod says Soulbook is the album he’s waited his whole career to make.

#16 Carl Doy - The Very Best Of
Sharing a birth year with Elton John, 62-year-old English-born Carl Doy is New Zealand’s most successful instrumentalist. It’s been more than nine years since he last charted (2000’s #21 Piano By Candlelight: Entrée). His Piano By Candlelight II opened at #1 and spent four frames in the lead position. It remains his biggest chart success here. Now the silence is broken with The Very Best Of Carl Doy, new at #16, his 10th in all.

#32 Diesel Phoenix - Here’s Something We Prepared Earlier
Dargaville was hometown to ‘70s pop superstar Mark Williams, and it’s also where Sam Polwart hails from. He’s lead singer of Auckland five-piece Diesel Phoenix who make the Album Chart at #32 with Here’s Something We Prepared Earlier. The band has just completed a secondary schools anti-bullying tour.

#35 Andre Rieu - My Music, My Life
Sixty-two-year-old Dutch violinist Andre Rieu is rumoured to be returning to Vector Arena Labour Weekend next year. He spends a second straight week atop the DVD list with My Life, My Music and this week its CD equivalent opens at #35, giving Rieu a ninth charter on that list.

ends