After a few weeks out of the top spot, but no lower than 2nd place in the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 albums chart, Lady Antebellum returns to the top spot with a six percent sales increase.  As their title track to the album Need You Now sits in the Top 10 at pop, AC and Hot AC, the group now has the second country Top 10 from the album with “American Honey.”  Blake Shelton’s latest album Hillbilly Bone, may be a ‘six pack’ but it has given him his highest chart debut ever and perhaps validating his label’s decision to try two ‘six pack’ collections of songs per year.  We’ll really see when the second one comes out this summer/fall.  Danny Gokey was third. And even though he moved over 65,000 albums, his album was sold-out virtually everywhere which leads one to believe had there been more copies of My Best Days out in the market, he may have debuted higher than Blake Shelton and possibly would’ve passed Sade for the second slot on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 charts.  Gokey also managed to score the second highest Hot 200 debut, behind only Adam Lambert but ahead of winner Kris Allen and Alison Iraheta.  Easton Corbin, who has a Top 5 single in “A Little More Country Than That,” now has a Top 10 album as his self-titled debut placed tenth this week, which is good enough for fourth on the Hot Country Albums chart.  Easton had this to say about the debut week: "I am humbled and amazed at the thought of that many people going out and buying my record the first week," said Corbin. "It just shows you how powerful country radio is when it comes to getting your music to the people. I am very appreciative of my label and all of their hard work."  Taylor Swift rounds out the Top 5 with her Fearless record. 

The Zac Brown Band continues to build a solid Foundation as they place 20th on the charts this week (sixth on the Hot Country Albums tally).  Their fourth single from the project, “Highway 20 Ride,” has broken into the Top 10 and has given them four Top 10 hits from a debut album, something that hasn’t happened to a group since Rascal Flatts did it nine years ago.  Johnny Cash’s American VI:Ain’t No Grave may not be the hit that the late Man In Black’s previous American Series  albums were, but that doesn’t stop it from having found over 77,000 homes.  Josh Turner’s Why Don’t We Just Dance is now officially done as a chart-topping hit but a month-long run for the first single from Haywire is still a remarkable achievement.  While the second single hasn’t been announced quite yet, Josh Turner’s fourth album is now past the 160,000 sales mark and with more hit singles, it should have no problem landing him another Gold album.   Carrie Underwood may have dropped seven spots on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart but with the success of “Temporary Home,” the 2005 American Idol winner still saw a sales boost as Play On found 18,000 more homes to get her near the 1.4 million sold mark.   With a Golden Globes already in their pocket the T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham scored an Oscar last Sunday for their theme song to the Crazy Heart soundtrack.  The film, which also gave star Jeff Bridges his first Oscar, has a country music soundtrack and it was the 10^th best selling country album of the week and was the 30^th best-selling album overall, giving country music a remarkable 1/3 of the top 30 albums on Nielsen SoundScan’s chart.

Lady Antebellum’s self-titled album, now an ACM nominee, moved another 15,000 units to place 11^th on the Hot Country Albums chart and was quickly followed-up by Jason Aldean’s Wide Open and Darius Rucker’s Learn To Live. Point of Grace debuts at 14 on the Hot Country Albums chart with their first ‘country’ album No Changing Us.   Josh Thompson sits at 15 this week with Way Out Here. The title track is being shipped to radio soon and it should help deliver the artist some more solid sales weeks down the line. 

Miranda Lambert’s last single, “White Liar,” took quite a few weeks to run up the charts yet here she sits at 32 this week with the follow-up single, “The House That Built Me.”  The song is only in its third week on the charts and is universally praised as the best track on the singer’s third album Revolution, which sits at 16 on this week’s Hot Country Albums chart.  It has now moved over 440,000 copies, which means that in a few weeks we’ll see the album officially pass the Gold sales mark (it already is a Gold record because of sales to stores).  Tim McGraw’s Southern Voice continues to give him hits as the latest single “Still,” the third one from the album, is in the Top 25 after only six weeks on the charts.  Chris Young’s The Man I Want To Be now has three hit singles in “Voices,” the #1 hit “Getting You Home,” and the current Top 20 hit title track.  The album has now moved nearly 240,000 albums while Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing is next on the Hot Country Albums chart at 19.  The album has moved over 260,000 copies thanks to the #1 hit “Do I?” and current Top 30 hit “Rain Is A Good Thing.”  Taylor Swift’s self-titled debut is next at 20 but the three-year old album is about to fall off the Nielsen SoundScan charts soon after it spends a few weeks below the Hot 100 album chart position, giving the album a remarkable, record-setting run for consecutive weeks inside the Hot 100 of the chart.

Next week is a light week of new releases but we’ll see how much Oscar helps Crazy Heart while we also find if Blake Shelton, Danny Gokey and Easton Corbin can hold onto their chart places.