Christmas traditionally helps the music businesses bottom line and that continues to be the case this year as every country music album on the SoundScan Top 200 Current Albums chart experienced at least a 9% sales increase. For the last three months, country music has found Scotty McCreery or Lady Antebellum leading the charge of the top-selling country albums on the chart and that’s the case once again this week as Lady Antebellum has the best-selling country album with another 110,000 copies finding their way into the stockings and gift bags of fans in the USA.
Scotty McCreery's Clear As Day is Nearly Platinum
Scotty McCreery’s Clear As Day is the second best-selling album of the week and has now sold 833,000 copies since debuting in early October, 2011. Jason Aldean continues to move My Kinda Party with over 75,000 people deciding to take the record home. He’s now shifted nearly 2.3 million copies of the album since a late summer 2010 release and it’s one of the best-selling country albums of 2011 (right there with Taylor and Lady Antebellum). “Red Solo Cup” continues to help Toby Keith on the sales front with Clancy’s Tavern now his best-selling album since That Don’t Make Me A Bad Guy. Luke Bryan’s Tailgates & Tanlines is now comfortably over the 600,000 sales mark since being released in early fall 2011 and it seems like this album is all but a cinch to become Luke’s first Platinum-selling album. It’s also the fifth-best-selling country album on the SoundScan chart this week.
Top 5 Country Albums for the week of December 28, 2011
| LW | TW | Artist | Album | Sales TW | Sales Total |
| 5 | 6 | Lady Anthebellum | Own The Night | 110,000 | 1,150,000 |
| 9 | 11 | Scotty McCreery | Clear As Day | 85,000 | 833,000 |
| 16 | 14 | Jason Aldean | My Kinda Party | 75,000 | 2,238,000 |
| 25 | 25 | Toby Keith | Clancy's Tavern | 52,000 | 318,000 |
| 28 | 27 | Luke Bryan | Tailgates & Tanlines | 51,000 | 630,000 |
Taylor Swift Leads Second Half of Country Top 10
With two albums on this chart, Taylor Swift is clearly leading the country Top 10 this week as Speak Now continues its march towards 4x platinum while Speak Now: World Tour live has now moved over 240,000 copes of the double-disc live set. Sandwitched between Taylor’s albums on the chart is The Platinum-selling self-titled debut album from The Band Perry. Miranda Lambert’s Four The Record remains the ninth best-selling country album for another week as the album inches closer and closer to Gold and eventual Platinum status sometime in 2012. Zac Brown Band’s You Get What You Give is next with nearly 1.35 million copies sold since fall 2010. The album has four #1 hits and current #1 hit “Keep Me In Mind” is the band’s biggest #1 hit yet with over 3 weeks at #1 on the chart. While we think that’s true, I’m sure fans still consider “Chicken Fried” to be the signature song of the band.
Top 10 Country Albums for the week of December 28, 2011
| LW | TW | Artist | Album | Sales TW | Sales Total |
| 20 | 29 | Taylor Swift | Speak Now: World Tour | 50,000 | 240,000 |
| 30 | 30 | The Band Perry | The Band Perry | 49,000 | 1,047,000 |
| 27 | 31 | Taylor Swift | Speak Now | 49,000 | 3,911,000 |
| 35 | 33 | Miranda Lambert | Four The Record | 46,000 | 358,000 |
| 54 | 49 | Zac Brown Band | You Get What You Give | 31,000 | 1,348,000 |
Eric Church and Blake Shelton Lead Gold Parade
This week’s five interesting albums on the SoundScan Top Country Albums chart features a handful of gold-selling albums that make their mark on the chart this week. Eric Church’s Chief has sold over 532,000 copies, and it’s now officially his second Gold album after Carolina but it’s his fastest-selling album by far and with his biggest hit of his career “Drink In My Hand” and potential hits like “Springsteen” and “Hung Over And Hard Up,” the record may very well become his first Platinum album. Blake Shelton, who is no stranger to Platinum, recently socred Gold for both this chart’s Red River Blue and for his Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton album, the first time Blake’s hit Gold on an album since March 2009’s certification of the 2007 album Pure B.S. Brad Paisley’s This Is Country Music rides the music wave this week with over 607,000 sales and a 43 percent sales increase while Tim McGraw’s #1 Hits album has now scanned over 500,000 copies, which is actually good enough for Platinum in the RIAA’s way of doing things. Rounding out the list here is Keith Urban’s Get Closer which returns to the chart this week and has nearly sold 700,000 copies.
Five Interesting Albums for the week of December 28, 2011
| LW | TW | Artist | Album | Sales TW | Sales Total |
| 56 | 51 | Eric Church | Chief | 28,000 | 532,000 |
| 62 | 56 | Blake Shelton | Red River Blue | 25,000 | 499,000 |
| 72 | 71 | Brad Paisley | This Is Country Music | 21,000 | 607,000 |
| 106 | 109 | Tim McGraw | Number One Hits | 12,000 | 515,000 |
| re-enter | 188 | Keith Urban | Get Closer | 7,000 | 680,000 |
A Few More Interesting facts:
· The Pistol Annies album has now sold 223,000 copies.
· Lauren Alaina Wildflower has now sold 214,000 copies.
· Chris Young has sold 312,000 copies of Neon.
· Alison Krauss/Union Station’s Paper Airplane has sold 312,000 copies, the most in the bluegrass world this year.
· The Civil Wars have now sold nearly a quarter of a million copies of the Grammy Nominated Barton Hollow.
· Eli Young Band has sold nearly 150,000 copies of Life At Best, an album which made our 10 best albums of 2011 list along with containing the Billboard #1 selling single of 2011 in “Crazy Girl,” which also was the Billboard chart’s #1 song for airplay too.
· Hunter Hayes has now sold over 62,000 copies of his self-titled Atlantic Records debut while first single “Storm Warning” inches into the Top 15 at radio while also inching closer to Gold selling single status.
Next week will likely see the sales numbers remarkably lower. However, as always, make sure to check back here to see where everything fares.
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