Jason Aldean opens with biggest country sales week since 2010 (Taylor Swift Speak Now). But Night Train will be overtaken next week by Swift’s Red. Still, this week, country albums take 3 of top 5 slots on Top 200 Albums chart!
It was the biggest sales week of Jason Aldean’s still-growing career as Night Train bowed on the charts with a remarkable over 409,000 albums sold this week. This is nearly double the amount of albums Aldean sold for My Kinda Party’s bow on the charts in 2010 (the week AFTER Swift sold 1 million records, a feat she’s on pace to top with Red next week). Night Train also becomes Jason Aldean’s first #1 on the SoundScan and Billboard Top 200 Albums charts. Scoring a big debut with his Christmas release is Scotty McCreery with Christmas With Scotty. The album moved 41,000 copies and its sure to find the 2011 Idol winner in the top 10 of the country charts through most of this upcoming Christmas shopping season. Jamey Johnsons lovingly-made star-laden album Livin’ For A Song:A Tribute To Hank Cochran debuts at #5 on the Top 200 Albums chart, giving Country music 3 of the Top 5 albums this week. Little Big Town’s Tornado, which spent five weeks topping this chart, slides to #8 on the Top 200 and #4 on the Top Country Albums chart, giving country 40% of the Top 10. Carrie Underwood’s Blown Away rounds out the Top 5 Top Country Albums chart with 14,000 more copies finding their way to fans.
Male Country Stars Round Out Top 10; Luke Bryan, Hunter Hayes Lead The Way.
The Top 3 albums in the Number 6 through Number 10 albums on this week’s rundown were Top 5 last week and despite strong sales increases for all three albums, they find themselves down to #6-#8. Luke Bryan’s juggernaut album Tailgates & Tanlines has nearly sold 1.5 million while Hunter Hayes’ self-titled debut benefitted from an iTunes sale to bring his album over 300,000 sold (he also sold over 2,200 copies of his iTunes exclusive Hunter Hayes Live EP). Eric Church is the last of the three ‘sliding’ albums and he gained enough sales to help Chief inch closer to the 1.1 million-sold mark. Zac Brown Band’s Uncaged sits at #9 this week with another 9k fans taking home the Gold-selling third album from the country jam band. Blake Shelton’s Cheers, It’s Christmas jumps the chart in its second week to #10 with 8,000 fans taking home the record, giving Blake his best week with the his first Holiday release yet. Like Scotty’s (and the upcoming album from Lady Antebellum), look for Cheers, It’s Christmas to be a strong selling album throughout the fall/winter holiday shopping quarter.
Florida Georgia Line, Colt Ford, Kip Moore, Lee Brice Notable Albums this week.
Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party sold an additional 7,000 copies this week to give the just-certified Triple Platinum album scanned sales of nearly 2.8 million (stores have roughly 200,000 or more copies of the record in their sales bins, which is how Platinum certifications are quantified, not by actual album sales). Lee Brice’s Hard 2 Love continues to move audiences to take the album home as the record which will likely feature two #1 hits as of next week has now moved 238,000 albums. Kip Moore, one of 2012’s breakthrough stars, has moved 213,000 copies of his MCA Nashville debut Up All Night while Colt Ford’s Declaration of Independence finds the underground country star with sales of 106,000 plus. Florida Georgia Line, the fast-rising duo now signed to Republic Records Nashville, continues to see strong sales of thier EP It’z Just What We Do as they now have sold nearly 40,000 copies of the EP in advance of their full-length debut on December 4.
Note: Jerrod Niemann’s Free The Music, Jake Owen’s Barefoot Blue Jean Night, Blake Shelton’s Red River Blue and Big & Rich’s Hillbilly Jedi all sold around 3,000 copies of their albums this week.
Top 10 Country Albums for This Week with Five Notable Albums (SoundScan Top 200 Current Albums Chart Placement)*
*Numbers rounded to nearest thousandth (links go to album reviews).
#1 – Jason Aldean - Night Train 409k (409,000)
#4 – Scotty McCreery - Christmas With Scotty 41k (41,000)
#5 – Jamey Johnson - Livin’ For A Song 32k (32,000)
#8 – Little Big Town - Tornado 22k (273,000)
#25 – Carrie Underwood - Blown Away 14k (864,000)
#27 – Luke Bryan – tailgates & tanlines 14k (1,454,000)
#31 – Hunter Hayes - Hunter Hayes 13k (301,000)
#38 – Eric Church – Chief 11k (1,098,000)
#44 – Zac Brown Band - Uncaged 9k (562,000)
#52 – Blake Shelton - Cheers, It’s Christmas 8k (21,000)
#57 – Jason Aldean - My Kinda Party 6k (2,787,000)
#83 – Lee Brice – Hard 2 Love 6k (238,000)
#90 – Kip Moore - Up All Night 5k (11,000)
#115 – Colt Ford - Declaration of Independence 4k (102,000)
#120 – Florida Georgia Line - It’z Just What We Do 4k (35,000)
Next week Taylor Swift Will debut with Red, a record which sold 500,000 copies in its first DAY, with over half of those sold at Target Stores alone. She’s expected to move over 1,000,000 copies. Lady Antebellum and Sammy Kershaw will also debut with Christmas album releases.
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