Jamey Johnson's "The Guitar Song" tops Top Country Albums Chart

Just as we told you in these pages last week, after weeks of stillness on the Hot 200 Country Albums chart, this week we’d see some new arrivals on the chart with Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song likely leading the way.  Well, that’s exactly what happened as the ACM and CMA Award-winning ‘traditionalist’ found over 62,000 homes for his fantastic double-disc opus.   He was followed by 2010’s best-seller, Lady Antebellum with their Need You Now album and the third edition of Now That’s What I Call Country Music! Singles compilation set with hits from the likes of Easton Corbin, Chris Young, Luke Bryan, Little Big Town, Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts and Jason Aldean (among others).  The album was a surprise entrant on the chart this week but given that over half of the country music fans in America don’t have high-speed interent and don’t download, then this would explain the nearly 15,000 fans picking up the disc.  Zac Brown Band will undoubtedly score the #1 album with the just-released You Get What You Give  which means they may possibly have two of the Top 5 country albums on the chart next week as The Foundation continues to find homes.  The album has now sold nearly 2.3 million copies since a fall 2008 release.  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution rounds out the Top 5 best-selling country albums on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.

Note: Robert Plant's Band of Joy album which features some country artists sold 49,446 copies last week, putting it #5 on the Hot 200 Albums chart.

Trace Adkins leads the second-half of the Top 10 country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week with Cowboy’s Back In tOwn now sitting comfortably over the 100,000 albums sold mark.  Justin Townes Earle’s third album  Harlem River Blues is next with nearly 9,000 fans finding the need to own the nice collection of tunes from Bloodshot Records.  Little Big Town’s second Capitol Nashville album, The Reason Why is next and has found nearly 80,000 homes since being released a month ago.  Taylor Swift’s Fearless experienced a bit of a bump from MTV thanks to her appearance on the show and she’s now working towards 6.1 million copies of the album while anticipating her October release of her follow-up Speak Now.  Joey+ Rory’s Album Number Two rounds out this week’s Top 10 best-sellers as Album Number Two found nearly 7,000 fans taking a shine to the record. 

James Otto’s Shake What God Gave Ya Leads the second-half of this week’s Top 20 country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart and he was less than 80 copies away from taking the tenth slot from Joey+Rory.  Carrie Underwood slips quite a few spots on the chart this week as Play On now sits as the 12th best-seller this week.  Ryan Bingham, BradPasiley and Jerrod Niemann round out the Top 15 with their  Junky Star, American Saturday Night and Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury albums, respectively.

Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing leads off the last five albums in the Top 20 this week and he’s followed-up by Blake Shelton’s All About Tonight, an album that has sold about half of what Hillbilly Bone had sold at a similar point in their chart-runs.  Easton Corbin’s Easton Corbin continues to find more homes and has past the 240,000 album sales mark while Lady Antebellum’s self-titled album sits at 19 on this week’s chart.  Jason Aldean’s Wide Open sits at 20 with nearly 1.3 million copies sold. 

EMI Music Nashville’s Eric Church finds Carolina leading this week’s ‘interesting albums/emerging artists’ rundown.  It has now sold over 270,000 copies since being released last year. Colt Ford’s Chicken and Biscuits continues to do well as the artist finds his album has now passed the 110,000 sales mark.  George Strait’s latest album, 2009’s Twang sits next with over 606,000 copies sold as “The Breath You Take” gives the legendary crooner another Top hit while Josh Turner’s “All Over Me” continues to help Haywire  march towards Gold as he’s now sold over 314,000 copies of the album since its release earlier this year.  Justin Moore’s Self-titled album rounds out this week’s chart and it is marching towards 300,000 copies sold, a mark it should reach sometime in November at the current sales pace.

Next week, Randy Houser, Zac Brown Band and Billy Currington will all find their albums hitting this chart. Check back to see how they fared.