The Incredible Machine Tops The Albums Sales Charts This Week

After taking hold of half of the Top 10 of SoundScan’s Hot 200 Albums chart last week, country music retains “only” two of those positions this week but the top spot has returned to a country music artist and with the release of Taylor Swift’s Speak Now next week, it looks as if this is a trend that will continue for a while to come.  Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine moved 202,711 copies last week to score the pole position on the charts with last week’s #2 album, Darius Rucker’s Charleston, SC 1966, has the #9 slot on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart but only slid down to #2 in the country tally.  He has now sold over 137,000 copies in two weeks.  Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey has now sold nearly 320,000 copies in four weeks and is this week’s #3 best-selling country album.  The Zac Brown Band’s You Get What You Give has been on the charts for five weeks and has now sold nearly 330,000 copies. Rounding out the country Top 5 of this week’s chart is The Band Perry’s self-titled debut album. It has now sold nearly 80,000 copies in two weeks, as “If I Die Young” makes its way deep into the Top 10.  This also gives country music 1/3 of the Top 15 albums this week.

Toby Keith’s Bullets In The Gun moved nearly 18,000 more copies this week, giving the artist sales over 120,000 in just three weeks.  Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now is this week’s seventh-best selling country album this week and has now scanned just under 2.7 million copies.  Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song has now sold 155,000 plus copies since being released six weeks ago.  Billy Currington’s Enjoy Yourself is the ninth-best selling country album this week and has now passed the 105,000 sales mark as Billy’s second single from the album, “Let Me Down Easy,” has broken the Top 40.  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution has now scanned nearly 900,000 copies and it retains the #10 slot on this week’s SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.

The Zac Brown Band have the #4 album on this week’s chart while they also have the #11 chat position as The Foundation sold over 8,000 more copies this week.  They’ve now sold nearly 2.32 million copies of the album while Taylor Swift’s Fearless has sold over 6.04 million copies and actually gained sales last week over the previous week.  Her single “Mine” is Top 5 at country radio while Speak Now is looking like it may have an outside shot at scanning one million copies next week, which would be the first time that has happened since 2008 when rapper Lil Wayne did it.  Even if she doesn’t hit that milestone, Swift will still likely score 2010’s best-selling week, currently held by rapper Eminem who sold 740,000 copies of his album during week one of sales.   Carrie Underwood’s Play On may not be selling at the level that Taylor Swift’s albums have but that doesn’t mean her third album is any less the success as it nears the 1.8 million scanned mark.  Trace Adkins’ two-disc The Definitive Greatest Hits collection of all of his hits for Capitol Nashville has now sold over 11,000 copies in two weeks, which isn’t too bad considering how the album hasn’t gained all that much publicity.  Eric Church’s Carolina has returned to the Top 15 with nearly 5,000 more fans picking up a copy of the album.

Jerrod Niemann leads the last quarter of the Top 20 country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week with his debut album Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury.   The album has now sold nearly 150,000 copies thanks to #1 hit “Lover, Lover” and fast-rising hit single “What Do You Want.”  Trace Adkins’ debut album for Show Dog-Universal, Cowboy’s Back In Town continues to march past the sales of his last Capitol album X with nearly 140,000 fans holding the album in their collections.  The lead single, “This Ain’t No Love Song” has now hit the Top 20 on the singles chart and could possibly get to the Top 10 or higher.  The Various Artist collection Now That’s What I Call Country Music! 3 has now sold over 50,000 copies.  Little Big Town’s The Reason Why has now sold nearly 109,000 copies as their sophomore single off of the album looks to maneuver up the charts.  Blake Shelton’s All About Tonight continues to march towards the 100,000 copies scanned mark as he gets ready for Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton hits the stores in a couple weeks. 

Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing is once-again our leader of the five interesting country albums on this week’s Hot 200 Albums chart. The album has now sold over 450,000 copies while the third single “Someone Else Calling You Baby” continues to climb the radio singles charts.  Easton Corbin has two consecutive #1 hits off of his self-titled debut album and has now sold nearly 260,000 copies of albums.  He is now getting ready to release “I Can’t Love You Back” to country radio in a couple weeks.  Dierks Bentley’s Up On The Ridge re-entered the chart this week and has now sold over 160,000 albums.  The Secret Sisters’ self-titled ‘retro’ album actually held-strong this week in its second week on the charts and has now sold over 5,200 copies in two weeks, without any major video or radio airplay.  Rodney Atkins’ It’s America retains a slot on this interesting albums chart due to a Top 10 hit single (“Farmer’s Daughter”) being tacked onto the CD while the artist works on his fourth Curb Records chart.

Like we said above, Taylor Swift is certain to enter at #1 on the country and Hot 200 Albums sales charts next week but there are a couple other interesting albums in Country Strong (Official Motion Picture Soundtrack) and The Essential Dixie Chicks stand chances of taking slots on the chart rundown next week as well. As usual, check back with us next week to find out how the chart shakes out.