Taylor Swift's Back To #1 with Speak Now

The “Black Friday” sales numbers are in and it finds the #1 country star of the moment, Taylor Swift, returning into the Top 5 of the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart behind new albums from her ‘nemesis’ Kanye West, female rapper Nicki Manaj and the sophomore album from Susan Boyle, who competed with Taylor last year for the #1 selling album of 2009 (Taylor’s Fearless won that battle). Speak Now sold over 240,000 copies last week with a total sales number near 2 million copies sold.  Last week’s best-selling country album moved from #1 to #2 on the country tally this week with a total of nearly 250,000 copies sold.  Keith Urban is right behind that trio with his latest album Get Closer sitting at nearly 240,000 copies sold in two weeks.  Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine experienced a 31% sales boost last week thanks to the post-thanksgiving sales bonanza and that has pushed the trio comfortably past the Gold sales mark with over 523,000 copies now in the hands of buyers.  Jason Aldean rounds out this week’s Top 5 with My Kinda Party getting nearly 60,000 more folks purchasing the album putting the record to near 390,000 copies sold. 

Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now experienced a 52% sales boost last week and found nearly 50,000 more homes to give the trio over 2.85 million copies sold.  Alan Jackson’s two-disc 34 Number Ones hits collection debuts as the 7th best-selling country album on the Nielsen SoundScan chart this week with nearly 33,000 copies sold.  Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey experienced a 21% sales-boost last week due to the holiday and has sold nearly 450,000 copies since being released.  The Band Perry’s self-titled debut jumps back into the country Top 10 at #9 this week, the same week their second single “If I Die Young” hit #1 on the single charts (and has sold nearly 1 million copies).  They’ve now sold nearly 200,000 copies of their album.   The Zac Brown Band’s You Get What You Give sits in the 10th place this week with a total sales of over 440,000 copies sold.

Lady Antebellum’s holiday collection slides this week on the SoundScan Chart to be the 11th best-selling country album this week.  A Merry Little Christmas has now sold over 130,000 copies in its exclusive run at Target stores.  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution slides to #11 this week and with it selling well over 10,000 copies a week, the album should hit the platinum sales mark next week with it currently sitting at 992,243 copies sold.  Reba McEntire’s All The Woman I Am has now sold 113,891 copies in three weeks on the charts as “Turn on the Radio” moves into the Top 5 at radio.  Darius Rucker’s sophomore country release Charleston, SC 1966 experienced a 29% sales increase thanks to the post-Thanksgiving holiday sales and has now sold nearly a quarter of a million albums.  With a healthy 72% sales increase, Taylor Swift’s sophomore album Fearless slid back up the charts into to become the 15th best-selling country album on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  It has now sold over 6.1 million albums.

Carrie Underwood’s Play On is the 16th best-selling country album for the first week of the holiday sales season with a 53% sales increase with a total sales mark now over 1.8 million.  Brad Paisley’s hybrid live/Greatest Hits album Hits Alive is next and has now sold nearly 90,000 copies since being released.  Toby Keith’s Bullets in the Gun scored a 52% sales increase last week and is nearing the 200,000 copies sold mark.  Lady Antebellum’s self-titled debut enjoyed a low sales price at Target stores this post-Thanksgiving weekend and experienced a 260% sales-boost because of it.  The album has now sold nearly 1.8 million copies.  The Zac Brown Band’s Foundation is next with its own 15% sales increase. With nearly 2.4 million copies sold in over two years on the charts, the album is also the 20th best-selling country album on the Hot 200 Albums chart while also being the 80th slot on this chart giving country music a quarter of the total albums sold here. 

Blake Shelton’s decade-spanning Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton slid down the chart a bit but still managed to find nearly 14,000 more fans.  Brad Paisley’s American Saturday Night gained a 117% sales increase this week with over 9,000 more copies of his most recent studio album finding homes or temporary homes before the holiday season.  Billy Currington’s Enjoy Yourself is next (#23) with a total sales number of nearly 150,000 as “Let Me Down Easy” makes its climb up the charts.  Jamey Johnson’s critically acclaimed The Guitar Song sits at #24 with nearly 200,000 albums sold and is followed at #25 by Eric Church’s Carolina, an album which has sold over 322,000 copies since its 2009 release. 

Country/CCM trio  Point of Grace re-enters the charts this week with their first country music album No Changin’ Us experiencing 154% sales increase and now the album has sold nearly 21,000 copies since being released earlier this year.  The all-star tribute to Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter, has now sold nearly 28,000 copies in three weeks on the charts while Blake Shelton’s All About Tonight continues to find audiences despite all of its hits being on the Loaded:Best of Blake Shelton hits album mentioned in the last paragraph.  Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing has sold nearly 475,000 copies as the artist works third single “Someone Else Calling You Baby” is rising up the charts.  Jerrod Niemann rounds out our chart rundown with the thirtieth best-selling country album of the week in Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury, a recording which has now sold nearly 175,000 copies since being released this past summer.

Next week’s only new release of note is Tim McGraw’s Number One Hits two-disc best-of collection.  Check back here to see how that album fares in relation to the other albums listed here while also checking to see if sales for albums – which is typically brisk until early January – continues to be as good as it was last week.