Taylor Swift Owned 41% of US Sales Market last week

The Impossible has happened.  In a time where albums with 200,000 sold routinely top the album sales charts, Taylor Swift has broken the million albums sold plateau her first week out with Speak Now. The artist who remains the #1 digitial sales artist of all times managed to do so with a remarkable amount of these albums being sold digitally.  Her final tally of 1,046,718 a whopping 958, 143 thousand copies ahead of the #2 album this week, last week’s #1 album The Incredible Machine. Also,  40% of the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums sold last week had Speak Now  on the CD cover and 41% featured Taylor Swift’s name. Swift also had this week’s #1 single on SoundScan with “Mine.”  Sugarland’s album moved 88,000 copies giving the crossover-bound duo nearly 300,000 copies sold in two weeks.  Darius Rucker’s Charleston SC, 1966 remains steady in the SoundScan Top 10 this week, even rising a notch to #9.  It is the third best-selling country release this week as Darius moved just over 27,000 copies giving him 164,000 copies sold in three weeks.  The Band Perry continues to be a sales leader and it looks as if some of the same people who like Miss Swift also like the family trio as they jump 4 spots on SoundScan’s Hot 200 chart to #11, with the band now past the 100,000 sales mark in just three weeks.  Kenny Chesney rounds-out this week’s Top 5 country albums with his latest, Hemingway’s Whiskey.   The set has now moved 338,000 copies. 

The Zac Brown Band lead the second half of Country Music’s Top 10 this week as You Get What You Give  has sold nearly 350,000 copies in 5 weeks. This album also ensured that 6 of the Top 15 on SoundScan’s Hot 200 Albums chart are country music albums.  Toby Keith’s Bullets in the Gun continues to move well as the album now has sold nearly 140,000 copies in its time on the charts.  The title track is screamin’ up the charts and looks poised to become Toby’s latest big hit.  Lady Antebellum’s fourth single from Need You Now, “Hello World,” just released a video that might have helped the album gain 23% in sales over last week.  The album has now sold over 2.7 million copies since being released in January.  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution has securely passed the 900,000 sales mark with over 10,000 copies of the album sold last week, giving the artist a sales bump of 19%.  With the CMA Awards only a week a way, the chart two weeks from now should find the album jumping even further.  Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song has passed the 160,000 sales mark this week with nearly 10,000 more fans deciding they need the double-disc opus in their collections.

With a 41% boost in sales over last week, Taylor Swift’s Fearless album sold nearly 10,000 copies this week thanks to the release of Speak Now. This is not an unheard of phenomenon as most of the bigger stars (like Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band) experience big sales of their previous albums when a new release makes its way to market.  Billy Currington has this week’s 12th best-selling country album on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week as Enjoy Yourself continues to march well over the 100,000 sales mark with over 115,000 now sold since being released a month ago.  Lady Antebellum’s three-week old Target-Exclusive CD Merry Little Christmas has sold nearly 40,000 copies in those three weeks, a remarkable feat considering it wasn’t even Halloween until this past Sunday.  The trio’s holiday EP will likely continue to sell remarkably well over the holiday season as the lone ‘high profile’ country holiday album of 2010 (along with Point of Grace’s country flavored Christmas release.  The debut album from the Zac Brown Band The Foundation continues to find audiences and it was enough to give 14 of the Top 50 albums to country music as the group’s album sold nearly 9,000 copies last week.  Carrie Underwood experienced a 29% gain in sales as Play On moved close to the Top 50 on the SoundScan chart with her landing at 51 and #20 in the country tally this week as “Mama’s Song” makes its move. 

The soundtrack for the Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw starring film Country Strong moved nearly 6,300 copies last week while the third volume of the Now That’s What I Call Country Music series jumped back up the charts with a 37% sales gain over last week to inch the album close to 60,000 copies sold. Eric Church may have tumbled out of the Top 15 Country albums but he still retains the 18th best-seller this week as Carolina makes a strong bid to get over the 300,000 copies-scanned mark next week.  Trace Adkins rounds-out this week’s Top 20 Country albums on the Hot 200 Albums sales chart with his Capitol Records Nashville career-best of set Definitive Greatest Hits and his first Show Dog-Universal recording Cowboy’s Back In Town sitting comfortably at 19 and 20. Both recordings experienced sales ganes of 6 and 3 percent, respectively, over last week. 

For the first time since being released this past July, Jerrod Niemann’s Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury sits outside of the Top 15 at country radio.  The album has now sold over 150,000 copies since being released.  Easton Corbin’s self-titled debut gained 10% in sales this week and is the second album we’re looking at on the albums of interest section of this week’s Hot 200 Albums chart provided by SoundScan.  Dierks Bentley’s Up On The Ridge gained 9% to give the CMA Awards Nominated album nearly 165,000 copies sold since being released this summer, making it – once again – the best-selling ‘bluegrass’ recording in the country.  It’s the 145th best-seller overall.  Chris Young’s The Man I Want To Be continues to work “Voices” (the first and fourth single from the album) up the charts and the album has safely passed the 370,000 sales mark this week thanks to a 3% sales bump while good ole King George Strait rounds-out our chart rundown with Twang still finding 2388 more fans last week, giving the icon’s latest album over 621,000 copies scanned since last summer.

Next week we’ll see if Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party can manage a remarkable sales number to ‘topple’ Taylor Swft’s Speak Now. As of this writing, the album sat at #1 on the iTunes sales chart for all albums while Brad Paisley’s Hits Alive was right behind the Big Machine star on the iTunes country tally. As always, come back here to find out how the albums chart played out.  On a side note, it looks like Tim McGraw may get his first #1 digital country single as “Felt Good On My Lips” is outpacing every Taylor Swift song while Aldean’s duet with Kelly Clarkson sits at #6 as an album cut.