Nick Cave, Tones And I are flying on U.K. charts

Several Australian artists are flying on the midweek U.K. charts, where one major prize is up for grabs.

Nick Cave has never had a U.K. No. 1. Right now, he can almost taste one.

Cave and his Bad Seeds and Grinderman bandmate Warren Ellis blast to No. 2 on the midweek chart with Carnage (via Goliath Records), their first non-soundtrack album, recorded over a period of weeks during the U.K. lockdown.

Based on midweek data, Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ is the album to beat.

Carnage originally dropped Feb. 25 on digital formats, and this week catches fire on the chart after its release on vinyl and CD.

To accompany the physical release, Cave and Ellis recorded a special online conversation on the album’s origins for a YouTube Premiere. That streaming chat now has a permanent home at Cave’s website.

Across his ARIA Hall of Fame career, Cave has logged six Top 10 albums in the U.K., with a best of No. 2 for his 2016 Australian Music Prize-nominated Skeleton Tree.

Carnage will give him a seventh Top 10. Where it finishes won’t be revealed until late Friday, when the Official Charts Company publishes its singles and albums surveys.

In Australia, Cave has 13 Top Ten albums, including chart leaders with Skeleton Tree and Push The Sky Away.

Over on the U.K. Singles Chart, Tones And I is flying toward the Top 40 with ‘Fly Away’ (Parlophone), which spikes 81-49 on the midweek chart.

‘Fly Away’ continues to climb and could soon become Tones’ second Top 40 after ‘Dance Monkey,’ which logged 11 weeks at No. 1 during its impregnable reign.

Thanks to its “huge gains midweek,” the OCC reports, ‘Fly Away’ zooms to No. 14 on the U.K.’s Official Trending Chart, all of which augurs well for the release of Tones’ debut full-length album Welcome to the Madhouse on July 16.

‘Fly Away’ has logged more than 700,000 combined U.K. streams so far, and is tracking for 1 million this week, say label sources, while combined sales are up by 40% week-on-week.

Meanwhile, ‘Dance Monkey’ has clocked 96 weeks in the Top 100 and it’s currently at No. 90 on the chart blast.

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