Carrie Underwood Plays On Top of the SoundScan Hot 200 Chart This Week

There must have been something in the water this week or the calendar turning from October to November and ushering in the gift giving season as virtually all country music artists this week experienced sales growths for their albums while other genre’s artists did not.  This trend is sure to continue next week as well, thanks to tonight’s CMA Awards broadcast (8 pm E/W on ABC). 

The chart-topping album on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone as Carrie Underwood moved over 300,000 copies of her third album Play On.  The second best-selling country album on the chart this week is Taylor Swift’s four- times platinum album, Fearless.  Tim McGraw’s latest  Southern Voice moved 37,000 more copies this week to bring the album’s three-week total to over 200,000 copies sold, making it the 16th best-selling album this week (and third-best on the Hot Country Albums chart).  The fourth best-selling album of the week is Zac Brown Band’s Foundation, which moved 23,000 more copies this week while rounding out the top five of the Hot Country Albums chart is Lady Antebellum with their self-titled debut. 

The sixth best-selling album on this week’s Hot Country Albums chart is Miranda Lambert’s Revolution.  The venerable Hannah Montana Movie Soundtrack moved nearly 16,000 more copies this week to put it over the 1,630,000 copies sold plateau.  Jason Aldean’s Wide Open takes the eighth spot on this week’s Hot Country Albums chart as his singles “Big Green Tractor” “She’s Country” and now “The Truth” continue to help him march towards his second platinum album.   Toby Keith’s American Ride holds steady this week as the ninth best-selling country album and has now moved nearly 170,000 copies in five weeks on the charts.  Alan Jackson’s Cracker Barrel-only set, Songs of Love and Heartache rounds-out this week’s Top 10 albums on the Nielsen SoundScan/Billboard Hot Country Albums chart as it moved over 14,000 copies. 

After a few weeks off of this chart run-down, Darius Rucker’s Learn To Live, with it’s four big hits, returns to the chart with a remarkable sales increase.  It was this week’s eleventh best-selling album and has now scanned more than one million copies at retail.  Darius’ label-mate Luke Bryan is 12th on chart with his sophomore effort, Doin’ My Thing.   The album has now moved 113,000 copies in about a month on the charts.  Taylor Swift’s self-titled album continues to defy odds as it remains in the top half of the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  The album has now sold nearly 4.4 million copies and it has spent the longest time on the chart this decade.  Sugarland’s recently released holiday album Gold & Green has started to see holiday scans as the album moved more than 10,000 copies, which is nearly one-third of the album’s sales so far.  Rounding out the Top 15 Hot Country Albums chart this week is Reba McEntire’s Keep On Loving You which moved nearly 10,000 copies to give it more than 270,000 copies sold. 

Each week we give you a rundown of five interesting albums on the Hot 200 Albums chart and this week’s rundown starts with Keith Urban’s Defying Gravity album.  With three chart-topping singles already released from it, the half-year old album has now sold nearly 620,000 copies and will stand to sell quite a few more should it win Album of the Year from the CMA Awards tonight.  Chris Young has already scored a number one hit from Man I Want To Be in “Getting’ You Home (The Black Dress Song)” and now he hopes to repeat that feat with the title track to the 100,000 copies-sold album now hitting the radio airwaves.  Brad Paisley’s CMA-nominee American Saturday Night experienced a sales increase as the album has now moved nearly 370,000 copies. The album’s title track is now the third single from the album and it is a song Paisley hopes will be his 12^th straight chart-topping hit (for various charts).  Jamey Johnson’s That Lonesome Song may only have had one hit single come from it (The CMA nominated “In Color” but that doesn’t mean the CMA Nominated album isn’t worth hearing.  It’s a cohesive album that the artist often sings every song from while on tour.    The final album on this chart rundown is Kellie Pickler’s self-titled sophomore album which moved a remarkable 24% more copies than its previous week.  While not nominated for any CMA Awards, Pickler did appear on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition this past week and she should see a sales spike from that appearance.

Next week we will not see any major new chart-topping albums, outside of Big Kenny’s The Quiet Times of a Rock and Roll Farmboy, but given this week’s CMA Awards show, most of the albums mentioned in this rundown should see healthy sales increases, outside of Underwood’s Play On. Check back next week to see how much the ABC TV broadcast helps the artist’s sales out.