Little Big Town Scores First #1 Of Career

After dominating the Top 10 of last week’s chart, Lady Antebellum finds themselves with only one slot in this week’s Top 10 selling albums as two other acts score the top two selling Country albums on this SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  Little Big Town’s The Reason Why gives the band their first Top 5 debut on the Hot 200 Albums chart and it becomes their first best-selling country album as it takes the Top Spot this week; the same week the album’s lead single “Little White Church” gives the band their first Top 10 hit since “Bring It On Home” in2006 (It’s the group’s third biggest hit overall).  The Randy Rogers Band may have out-paced Little Big Town on the digital singles sales chart but their third major-label album Burning The Day became the second best-seller this week.  The album debuts this week at eight on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart which makes Burning The Day the band’s best debut ever.  Trace Adkins’ Cowboy’s Back In Town slid from first to third this week as the star gained a pair of ACM Nominations for “Hillbilly Bone.” It is their third record to debut in the Top 10 of the country sales chart, despite never having a Top 40 single.  Lady Antebellum finds themselves with the fourth best-seller this week as Need You Now slides a bit down the charts.  The year’s best-selling album is now close to the 2.6 million albums sold as “Our Kind of Love” looks to give the band their third #1 hit from the album.  The Zac Brown Band’s Foundation rounds-out the Top 5 best-selling country albums this week. 

Miranda Lambert, who scored 5 nominations for two separate songs(her songs got 6 as “House That Built Me” got songwriters credits) in the first round of the ACM Award Nominations yesterday and picked-up four more nominations today as she landed a vocal event nomination with Dierks Bentley and Jamey Johnson for “Bad Angel” while also getting expected female vocalist and Album of the year nominations for this week’s sixth-place country album, Revolution.  She also scored a surprising Entertainer of the Year nomination.  Blake Shelton – Miranda’s fiancé – also scored a couple nominations yesterday for his duet “HillbillyBone.”  His current album All About Tonight finds the title track sitting at #1 on the singles chart for a third consecutive week while Jerrod Niemann’s “Lover Lover” helped the artist score his first CMA Nomination with a “Best New Artist” nomination the same week his debut album Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury hit the 100,000 albums sold mark.  Taylor Swift didn’t score any CMA Award nominations outside of getting a cursory female vocalist award.  While she may be in the discussion for this award, I have a feeling she’ll be replaced by Miranda Lambert.  Her Fearless is this week’s holder of the ninth best-selling country album on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week, just ahead of her ‘mythical’ arch enemy Carrie Underwood and the CMA Awards nominated Play On.  Underwood also scored a vocalist nomination as well.

Lady Antebellum’s self-titled debut (which somehow got an ACM Nomination earlier this year) leads the 11-15 section of the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart while the thrice-nominated Brad Paisley finds his current album American Saturday Night next as he gets ready to host the CMA Awards with Carrie Underwood.  Easton Corbin scored two nominations himself as his #1 debut single “A Little More Country Than That” scored a single of the year nomination while Corbin scored a Best New Artist nomination.  Rory Feek (of Joey+Rory), Don Poythress and Wynn Varble scored a song of the year award Nomination for writing “A Little More Country Than That.”  Dierks Bentley scored three CMA Nominations this year, thanks largely to the industry and so far successful album Up On The Ridge.  It gave Bentley an album of the year nomination along with getting a vocal event for “Bad Angel” with Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson.  Luke Bryan rounds out this week’s Top 15 on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart as Doin’ My Thing helped him (along with two #1 singles) snag one of the Best New Artist nominations. 

Colt Ford has passed the 100,000 sales mark for Chicken & Biscuits this week which gives the artist two albums to have passed this milestone, something not often done for an independent country music artist without radio success.   Josh Turner’s Haywire is next on the interesting albums section of SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart  this week and what’s remarkable is that he didn’t snag a male vocalist nominations.  Jaron and the Long Road to Love’s Getting Dressed in the Dark has crossed the 90,000 albums-scanned mark while CMA Award Nominees The Band Perry’s EP has sold almost 25,000 copes (exclusively digital).  Justin Moore’s self-titled album rounds out this week’s chart rundown as “How I Got To Be This Way” looks to give the artist his third Top 10 hit sometime in the near future. 

Next week’s char t is likely to see a few albums score sales bumps thanks to this week’s CMA Award news.  It’s one of the last quiet weeks of the 2010 release schedule. Check back next week to see who benefitted the most from the CMA Award Nominations.