Sales Slump In Week after Thanksgiving Sales High

The sales chart for the first full week of holiday shopping has arrived and as we expected, the post-thanksgiving sales didn’t extend too much into the following week.  In fact most albums reverted to pre-thanksgiving sale levels.  Once again Taylor Swift leads the way with the #2 album in the country behind Susan Boyle (in a repeat of 2009).  Keith Urban moves up to having the second best-selling country album in the country with Get Closer, passing Rascal Flatts’s Big Machine Records debut Nothing Like This.   Both albums have sold around 300,000 copies in three weeks on the charts while Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party is right behind those albums with the CD having sold 440,000 copies and it will shortly move to Gold album status within the next two weeks.  Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine is already past the gold mark and looks to be briskly heading towards the Platinum sales mark. 

Tim McGraw’s third greatest hits project, this one focusing on his Number One Hits, sold a solid 40,000 copies last week, which is right around what Brad Paisley sold his first week out for Hits Alive. Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now sits at #7 this week with the nearly triple platinum album being quickly followed by the trios own holiday album A Merry Little Christmas.  The latter record has sold 159,000 copies since being released to Target stores in October.  Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey follows that album up with total sales now hitting over 471,000 copies sold.  Alan Jackson’s two-disc career retrospective album 34 Number Ones, has now sold nearly 60,000 copies in two weeks and may sell quite a bit next week after getting a huge showcase on the American Country Awards. 

The Zac Brown Band has the 11th best-selling country album in this week’s Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Chart with You Get What You Give.  The album is the 40th best-selling album in the country which means that country music has more than a quarter of America’s top-selling albums in the country.  The Band Perry sit next with their self-titled debut album.  It has now sold over 215,000 copies and looks like a sure bet to hit the gold sales mark sometime next year as the trio works third single “You Lie” up the billboard country singles chart on the heels of the Grammy-nominated “If I Die Young.”  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution is now officially a million-seller this week as “Only Prettier” continues to run up the charts.  Taylor Swift’s 2008 release, Fearless is right behind Miranda with more than 19,000 people picking-up a copy of the record.  The 15th best-selling country album of the week belongs to Darius Rucker for his sophomore country release Charleston, SC 1966.  Second single “This” is looking like another Top 2 single, something each of Rucker’s singles has done.

Reba McEntire has the sixteenth best-selling country album in the country as the four week old All The Woman I Am has now sold more than 130,000 copies.  Brad Paisley’s Hits Alive (which really has nothing new on it besides being half live versions of his past hits) has moved past the 106,000 copies sold mark.  Carrie Underwood’s Play On has found 14,000 more fans this week and is nearing the 1.9 million-sold mark.  Zac Brown Band’s The Foundation has now sold nearly 2.4 million albums since a fall 2008 release.  Blake Shelton’s Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton has sold 66,000 copies in the month on the charts and while it seems a little low, it’s likely to continue to grow as the weeks go by and “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking” and potentially “Kiss My Country Ass” make their runs of the sales charts. 

Toby Keith’s Bullets in the Gun has now sold over 200,000 copies and the album is quickly rising to the sales levels of 2009’s American Ride album.  Billy Currington’s Enjoy Yourself features the #1 “Pretty Good at Drinkin’ Beer” and the current Top 40 hit “Let Me Down Easy” and now has sold over 150,000 copies since being released earlier this fall.  Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song was certified gold recently and has now surpassed the 200,000 sales mark with only a pair of Top 50 singles.  Eric Church’s Carolina continues to find homes while “Smoke A Little Smoke” finds an audience.  Jerrod Niemann’s Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury has now sold over 175,000 copies since being released this summer.  His current single is “What Do You Want.”

The 26th best-selling country album of the week is Blake Shelton’s second album sold in 2010, the six song album All About Tonight.   The fantastic tribute album to Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter has now sold over 32,000 copies. After a metoric rise up the charts last week – thanks to black Friday sales – the two year old Lady Antebellum self-titled album returned to a more realistic situation this week but it still has moved over the 1.8 million sold mark.  The various artist compilation Now Country Volume 3 has now sold over 80,000 copies since release in September and it just goes to show that there are country fans out there who still like getting pre-packaged radio hit CDs because they don’t have or want to use an iPod or digital mp3 stores. The Zac Brown Band’s Pass the Jar: Zac Brown Band and Friends Live has now sold 167,873 copies and given that it’s a two cd one DVD set, the album is already a gold video and will soon be certified gold for album sales as well. 

Next week the only new albums are a Kevin Fowler best-of set (which won’t likely hit the charts) and the debut album from Leverage star Christian Kane.  Check back here to see if he gets on this chart run-down with The House Rules or if not enough people are interested in purchasing the recording.