‘We Haven’t Spent a Dollar on Marketing the Music’: How Tones and I Hit No. 1 With ‘Beautifully Ordinary’
With an assist from a sync, another from Pink, and an “unmatched work ethic,” Tones and I finds herself in familiar turf –– at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart.
Tones’ second and latest album Beautifully Ordinary (via Bad Batch Records/Sony Music) debuts at the summit of the ARIA Chart, published Friday, Aug. 9, completing a perfect two-from-two for the Rolling Stone AU/NZ cover star.
Also, Beautifully Ordinary produces the second consecutive chart-leader by a homegrown act, after Lime Cordiale’s drought-breaking LP, Enough of the Sweet Talk.
There’s nothing ordinary about this release. No budget was busted; Tones and her team let the music do the work.
“We haven’t spent a dollar on marketing the music,” reads a joint statement to TMN from her management team at Lemon Tree Music. “We are six years deep now in working with Tones and have the best seat on her crazy global journey.”
That journey went stratospheric with Tones’ 2019 breakthrough “Dance Monkey,” which logged 24 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart, an all-time record, and landed atop sales charts in more than 30 territories.
In the build-up for Beautifully Ordinary, Tones was in record-busting style, both on stage and in streaming-land.
Tones opened for Pink on the U.S. pop superstar’s blockbuster Summer Carnival ANZ trek, which shifted some 970,000 tickets (second all-time behind Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour) and played 20 stadiums – a new mark.
Also, “Dance Monkey” climbed past 3 billion plays on Spotify, a record for a female-solo artist, and one of just seven tracks to reach that milestone.
The winner of Variety AU’s tour of the year, Summer Carnival “was certainly a shot in the arm for Tones as almost a million people saw how much of incredible performer she is in the country’s biggest stadiums,” reads the message from LTM’s Regan Lethbridge, David Morgan and Marietta Ouzas. “The sing-alongs in her set were deafening and it was such a buzz to see her crush that run.”
Positive word-of-mouth has accompanying the new LP, the followup to 2021’s ARIA champ Welcome to the Mad House (one admittedly-acerbic, U.S.-based music journalist told this reporter that Tones had created a “really solid, interesting record” with Beautifully Ordinary).
And Tones enjoyed lift off through a heavily-rotated Qantas campaign, a tie-in with the 2024 Paris Olympic Games which syncronised Tones’ 2023 song “I Made It.”
The national carrier has a “great relationship” with Tones, which has included a 2021 campaign soundtracked by “Fly Away,” and “we are stoked to continue a great run of big syncs to hit lounge rooms all over Australia,” LTM’s teammates tell TMN.
Beautiful Ordinary is officially the biggest Australian artist release on the ARIA Chart in 2024, and the second straight leader by an Aussie act, a welcome relief for an industry that had waited 10 months for a break.
“Well, when it rains, it pours,” comments ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd in a statement. “Tones has given us two Australian No. 1s two weeks in a row. A huge congratulations to Tones and her team on this incredible achievement. We’re absolutely thrilled for you and all of your accomplishments across an outstanding career so far.”
Tones will carry that cracking form into her own headline run, which begins at Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday August 17.
Live Nation, producers of the tour, has added a raft of shows including Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena (Nov. 9), Sydney’s Opera House Forecourt (Nov. 30) and Hobart’s MyState Bank Arena (Dec. 7) after her August and September dates sold out.
Those encore shows in Melbourne and Sydney were slotted in “keep up with demand,” after the headline run completely sold out in a day or two, TMN understands.
“In such uncertain tough times for the industry,” says the team at LTM, “to see an artist sell out like that made us incredibly proud.” Coterie is the support act for the August and September shows.
“Tones is one of the most driven people I’ve met with unmatched work ethic which inspires all around her to reach new heights,” enthuses LTM’s Lethbridge, Morgan and Ouzas.
“Her songwriting is acknowledged globally and the songs speak for themselves.”
The vision in “Tones’ head and creative mind is unlike anything we’ve seen. She’s a genius in so many ways and a very smart cookie.”