Amy Shark's fourth album, Soft Pop, entered the ARIA Albums Chart at No.2 for the week of 3 August, behind Charli XCX's Music, Fashion, Film. It is the first Shark album not to debut at No.1.
Love Monster in 2018, Cry Forever in 2021 and Sunday Sadness in 2024 all went straight to the top. Love Monster won three ARIA Awards, among them album of the year.
Soft Pop came out on 24 July through Wonderlick Entertainment and Sony Music Australia. Shark wrote all of it herself, with no co-writes and no guest artists, which sets it apart from records she has made with outside writers and features.
Charli XCX and Shark were the week's two big debuts and they arrived together. The Strokes made it three new entries in the top ten, coming in at No.10 with Reality Awaits.
The rest of the ten held from previous weeks: Olivia Rodrigo at three with you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Gracie Abrams at four with Daughter from Hell, Olivia Dean at five with The Art of Loving, Laufey at six, Noah Kahan at seven, Sienna Spiro at eight and Alex Warren at nine.
Shark is the only Australian act in the albums top ten this week. The other nine entries are British, American or, in Laufey's case, Icelandic. That is the market an Australian release now debuts into, and a No.2 against a Charli XCX release week is not the same result as a No.2 against nothing.
On the singles chart Ella Langley held No.1 with Choosin' Texas. Olivia Dean's Man I Need sat at two and Rein Me In, her track with Sam Fender, at three. Katseye's Animal was the week's highest new entry at No.8, and Morgan Wallen's Been By Now came in at 33.
Debut position is the number that gets reported and the least durable one. It is set by release-week promotion, pre-orders and the strength of whatever else happens to come out that Friday. Cry Forever spent two weeks at No.1 in 2021 and Love Monster one, so the useful comparison for Soft Pop is not where it entered but how long it holds.
Shark has not released an album since Sunday Sadness in 2024. Soft Pop is her first record written end to end on her own, and its second week on the chart is due later this week.
