Iggy Azalea's Fancy still the No 1 song, meaning Australian female pop acts now lead both single and album charts in the US

Just a week after her pole position debut in the Aria album charts, Sia’s 1000 Forms of Fear has debuted at No 1 in the Billboard 200. The record shifted 52,000 copies in its first week after its 8 July release, buoyed by the worldwide smash hit single, Chandelier.

Compatriot Iggy Azalea's hit Fancy is the No 1 single on the Billboards, which means Australian female pop acts now lead both charts.

The album, Sia Furler's sixth studio record, is the Adelaide-born artist’s return to the mic after a considerable amount of time writing hits for other artists. In a Guardian review of the album, Kitty Empire writes: “It is probably her best, the result of years of refining her art (yes, writing pop smashes is an art) and of feeling wretched and unloved despite all her success.”

And she’s certainly had immense success: Furler’s was the golden pen that wrote Beyoncé’s Pretty Hurts, Rihanna’s Diamonds and David Guetta’s Titanium, among many others. Of working with the songwriter on her latest album Kiss Me Once, Kylie Minogue said: “We're all looking for the hit and she delivers. Working with Sia was nothing short of amazing. She's a genuine article.”

What makes the 38-year-old's chart success all the more remarkable in this age of non-stop marketing and social media engagement, is that she has consciously avoided selling herself to sell copies of the record. As part of her Billboard cover story last year, she explained her plans to hide in plain sight, writing an “anti-fame manifesto” which began with the call to arms, “If anyone besides famous people knew what it was like to be a famous person, they would never want to be famous.”

Her face does not appear on the 1000 Forms of Fear artwork, and in each public performance of its songs she has found new and amusing ways to remain faceless: employing a young dance star or an actor (such as Lena Dunham) as a stand-in, appearing alongside a male choir or camouflaging herself against a backdrop.

Sia hides behind a wig as she performs with New York City Gay Men's Chorus. Photograph: Andrew H Walker/Getty Images

1000 Forms of Fear’s No 1 debut is not Furler’s first taste of chart success, though it’s her most unequivocal one. Her previous albums have fared well, though far more modestly, in the US, no doubt helped by a cult following that sprang up when her song Breathe Me was used to great effect in the final sequence of drama series Six Feet Under. In an oral history of that episode’s denouement, series creator Alan Ball said: “When I heard Breathe Me, I was like, ‘OK, that’s it. That’s the one.’ I wrote the scene to fit that song, with that music in mind.”

Furler returned to the screen (facelessly, just as she likes it) with a song, Elastic Heart, on the soundtrack to last year’s Hunger Games: Catching Fire (the track is also included on 1000 Forms of Fear). The soundtrack made it to No 5 in the Billboard 200 and introduced a new audience to Furler’s talents. In other words, the past few years of her work has been building into the perfect storm that brought about her impressive chart debut.

This latest feat catapults her into a very exclusive club: the last Australian artist’s album to debut at No 1 in the Billboard 200 was Keith Urban, whose Fuse was released in September 2013. Urban’s success is largely due to the enduring popularity of country music in the US. For pop artists, the album charts are a tougher nut to crack. Even with the help of a popular single, Australian albums don’t necessarily scale the charts; despite Goyte’s Somebody That I Used To Know being certified double-platinum in the US, the accompanying album, Making Mirrors, peaked at No 6 in the Billboard 200.

Australian artists typically fare better in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, but even then, Furler finds herself in rarefied company: the list of Billboard Hot 100 number ones by Australian artists is short, and mostly populated by the Bee Gees, Helen Reddy, INXS and Savage Garden.

There was over a decade’s gap between Savage Garden’s last No 1 in 2000, I Knew I Loved You, and Gotye’s 2011 smash. It was another two years before Iggy Azalea hit the top spot with Fancy this June.