Colt Ford Debuts At #3 On Album Chart This Week

The second half of this week’s Top 10 country albums, according to SoundScan, starts off with You Get What You Give the Zac Brown Band’s sophomore release.  It experienced a 24% sales increase and sits just ahead of Donnie & Marie’s self-titled album of duets (which is categorized as country).  They are just ahead of Rascal Flatts’ Big Machine debut Nothing Like This. The album, which features #1 “Why Wait” and Top 5 “I Can’t Let Go” has now sold over 806,000 copies.  Sara Evans gets a second week at #1 with “A Little Bit Stronger” as Stronger has another solid sales week and now has sold over 171,000 copies.  The Soundtrack to Country Strong rounds out the Top 10 with sales now over 257,000 copies. 

The Band Perry’s self-titeld album slides down the chart a wee-bit but manages to gain 17% in sales over last week with the trio’s “You Lie” running up the charts.  The album has now sold nearly 540,000 copies while Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine experiences a 51% sales increase to jump back into the Top 15 of SoundScan’s Country Albums Chart. The popular duo is now less than 25,000 scanned copies away of officially having yet another platinum album. Emmylou Harris’ latest Hard Bargain found another 10,000 fans giving her nearly 30,000 copies scanned in two weeks, not bad for a ‘heritage’ artists with little airplay outside a few ‘Americana’ stations. Miranda Lambert scored a 21% sales increase with Revolution this week as she looks to score yet another #1 with “Heart Like Mine.”  She’s now scanned over 1.3 million copies of the album.  Steve Earle’s I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive has now scanned 21,000 copies in two weeks while facing the similar fate that afflicts Emmylou’s album. 

With NBC’s The Voice a certifiable hit, Blake Shelton is looking primed to score big with his next album yet his first ever best-of, Loaded…The Best of Blake Shelton has now sold over 250,000.  The next album is scheduled for a July release (tentatively).  Kenny Chesney just released “You and Tequila” (featuring Grace Potter) and he hopes the song gives him his fourth consecutive #1 hit.  Those hits have helped the album move over the 806,000 scanned threshold since being released last fall.  Aaron Lewis’ Town Line has sold over 136,000 copies since coming out a couple months ago all the while “Country Boy” continues to sell well and get in the Top 60 of the radio charts. Zac Brown Band’s venerable The Foundation remains the best-selling non-catalog country album from 2008 as it moved nearly 7,000 more copies this week to land the #19 slot on the chart, just ahead of newcomers Thompson Square and their self-titled debut.  That record has now sold nearly 160,000 since being released earlier this year.

Normally we do would be on to an interesting albums section of this SoundScan roundown but today we’re bringing ya five more for the Top 25 SoundScan Country Albums.  Tim McGraw sits at #21 this week with the Gold Number One Hits while Randy Travis is right behind him with the new Cracker Barrel-exclusive self-titled hits collection.  Right behind Randy is Darius Rucker with Charleston, SC 1966.  The CD has now sold over 461,000 copies and by fall should easly be a Gold-selling recoring.  Right behind him is the Eli Young Band’s digital Crazy Girl EP. This album, which reached as high as #3 on iTunes last week, sold an impressive 4600 copies without any physical product available outside of their concert shows.  Billy Currington’s Enjoy Yourself rounds out this week’s Top 25 with just under 4,600 new fans. 

The interesting section of the SoundScan Hot 200 Current Albums chart starts off with Keith Urban at 116 with Get Closer.  Moms everywhere love them some KU as he jumped 54 slots on the chart this week.  They must love Steve Martin too as the Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers Rare Bird Alert recording rebounded from outside the Hot 200 to land at 120. Insert dry sarcastic comment from Mr. Martin here.  Jerrod Niemann is directly behind Steve with his Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury record now officially over the 300,000 scanned mark while Easton Corbin inches closer to 400,000 at the 156 position on this week’s chart, nine spots ahead of our final rundown participant this week: Carrie Underwood, who’s just over 3,600 copies away from scanning Double Platinum with Play On.