Half this week’s ARIA Top 50 is greatest hits collections or soundtracks

We’ve cracked it.

It seems the easiest road to ARIA chart success in 2018 is to either amass decades of hit singles, and then package these into a convenient collection, or to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a successful film franchise and then spin off a soundtrack album.

This week’s ARIA Albums charts are flooded with legacy recordings — 15 greatest hits collections from the likes of Cold Chisel, ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Kelly — and seven soundtracks from the likes of Moana, Pitch Perfect 3, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and The Greatest Showman, which is sitting at #1 at the moment. To reiterate, Hugh Jackman has the highest-selling album in the country. That’s the one we all, collectively, decided we like the most.

This level of greatest hits/soundtrack success makes sense during the final few weeks of December, that gift-buying, Mum-likes-ABBA-doesn’t-she? season. A number of these artists are also touring, or coming off the back of a tour (or gearing up for a Streep/Bronson-themed musical), which also makes sense.

But a few weeks into the new year, it’s still surprising to see the likes of Guns N Roses and INXS in the higher reaches of the albums chart.

Check out the full chart here.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.