Taylor Swift Reclaims the Top Spot on Album Sales Chart

Thanks to the new Fearless [Platinum Edition], Taylor Swift has moved back to the top of the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  While she was expected to garner second place on the charts after Michael Jackson’s This Is It concert CD/DVD soundtrack, re-formed rockers Creed stole her thunder and placed second with their new Full Circle.  Swift sold over 109,000 copies of Fearless to score the third spot, which was good enough to take first place on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot Country Albums chart. 

Tim McGraw’s Southern Voice moved over 59,000 more copies giving him nearly 200,000 copies sold in just two weeks.   It was good enough to place ninth on the overall Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart while placing second on the Hot Country Albums chart. Due to a plethora of new releases this week, the Zac Brown Band, despite their #1 hit “Toes,” drops down from 11 to 22 on the charts but still sold a respectable 22,000 copies to grab the third highest selling country CD of the week.  Lady Antebellum scored the fourth best-selling country CD of the week with their resilient self-titled release nearly 90 weeks into its chart run.  Rounding out the Top Five Hot Country Albums this week is Toby Keith with his three week old American Ride album. 

The second half of the Nielsen SoundScan Hot Country Albums chart features Miranda Lambert and her critically-acclaimed third album Revolution which is quickly followed by Jason Aldean’s own third release, Wide Open.  Next is the Hannah Montana Movie Soundtrack, something I’m sure most fans would love to see removed from these weekly-rundowns.  Rounding out the Top 10 Hot Country Albums this week are Luke Bryan with his sophomore release Doin’ My Thing and Rosanne Cash with her tribute to her father, The List. 

In the interesting section of our chart rundown we find the debut of Joe Nichols’ latest album Old Things New.  It’s sad that only 7,500 people purchased this great, great album.  Chris Young’s Man I Want To Be passing the 100,000 albums sold mark while he prepares to release the title track to country radio.  Sugarland’s Holiday album Green and Gold is slumin’ in the lower 100 of the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart but it shouldn’t be there for long as the holidays come along and people look for the right music to spin at Christmas time.  After last week’s Top 100 Albums debut, Bomshel continues to fight with their debut album Fight Like A Girl landing near the 10,000 albums sold mark.  The duo, who have a second Top 40 hit this week with current single “19 and Crazy” are likely to see sales pick-up as the single hits home with all of us as winter cold kicks in.  The Now That’s What I Call Country! Christmas compilation CD rounds-out this week’s rundown and aside from the new releases, it is the ONLY country album on the Hot 200 Albums chart which experienced a sales gain. 

Next week we should see a #1 debut from Carrie Underwood as the former Idol winner and country diva has released Play On this week.  While no other notable releases were released in the country realm, outside of Alan Jackson’s Cracker Barrel-exclusive Songs of Love and Heartache, there was an interesting CD released for the Television show Glee.  Glee: The Music, Volume 1 is likely to be the biggest rival to Carrie Underwood’s album this week, along with Michael Jackson’s This is It.  The week after that is CMA Awards Week and that means that country artists will see an uptick of sales just prior to the start of the holiday gift buying season, which always helps out album sales as they remain cost-effective gifts for people to give away.