For the last five or six weeks, the SoundScan Top Country Albums chart has featured Scotty McCreery and Lady Antebellum alternating the #1 slot on the chart week by week. With Scotty’s 19/Interscope/Mercury debut holding down #1 last week’s chart, that means that Lady Antebellum’s Own The Night – recorded for Capitol Nashville – has the #1 slot this week.  The album (which was the nations #5 best-seller) moved 81,000 copies to bring scanned sales totals to over 1 million copies while Scotty’s nearly at 3/4 of a million copies scanned (with 67,000 sold this week, good for 9th in the country).  Jason Aldean holds steady at #3 on the charts this week with My Kinda Party having moved another 52,000 copies, which was 51% more than last week. In fact, all the country albums on the chart this week had at least 11% sales gains, a remarkable achievement.  Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, World Tour live DVD/CD set is almost gold with over 190,000 copies of the set scanned so far with 46,000 coming this past week. Toby Keith rounds out the Top 5 this week with Clancy’s Tavern having shifted another 39,000 copies thanks in large part to the omnipresence of “Red Solo Cup.” He’s now sold over 266,000 copies of the album.

Top 5 Country Albums for the week of December 21, 2011

*Note: Sales Figures Rounded to Nearest Thousand.

“I Don’t Want This Night To End” helps Tailgates & Tanlines Sell Strongly

With another 37,000 copies scanned, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now has now moved 3.86 million copies while Luke Bryan’s Tailgates & Tanlines  continues to move units and has now sold over 580,000 copies while The Band Perry are just a mere 2,000 copies away from having scanned 1,000,000 albums for their self-titled debut album. Miranda Lambert scanned past the 300,000 marker the same week her Pistol Annies Hell on Heels project moved past the 200,000 mark. Zac Brown Band’s You Get What You Give rounds out this week’s Top 10 country albums with sales now a robust 1.3 million.  Each of the five albums on this second half of the SoundScan Top Current Country Albums chart gained at least 31% in sales over last week’s numbers. 

Top 10 Country Albums for the week of December 21, 2011

Eric Church Is Chief, Blake Nearly Gold, Brad Rises While George Has a Good Time!

Eric Church’s Chief – already certified Gold – scanned past the remarkable 500,000 number this week as the album sold another 20,000 copies as “Drink In My Hand” continues to be the best-charting single of Eric’s career (just wait until “Springsteen” becomes an earworm this coming spring, sales will be incredible). Blake Shelton’s Red River Blue is nearly Gold as well with sales sitting at 474,000 this week. He should be able to sell 26,000 copies of it before 2011 becomes 2012, giving him a strong Gold-selling year for the album (and he’s nearly gold for Loaded…The Best of Blake Shelton too). Brad Paisley scored a 54% sales increase this week to have his nearly 600,000 copies sold album This Is Country Music rising 15 slots on the SoundScan Top 200 Current Albums chart this week (it’s now at 72). It was also good enough to land the album in the Top 15 Country albums of the week.  George Strait’s Here For A Good Time continues to find fans and the superstar legend has now sold nearly 300,000 copies of the record while new single “Love’s Gonna Make It All Right” rises up the charts to join the title track as yet another strong hit for the all time #1 record holder. Lauren Alaina’s Wildflower rounds out the sales #s this week with nearly 200,000 copies now in the hands of fans, many of whom probably never knew her from her America Idol seasons.  Wildflower also now has two Top 40 hits in “Like My Mother Does” and current single, the Mallary Hope-penned “Georgia Peaches.” Lauren will be hitting the road with fellow Georgi native Jason Aldean this coming year.

Five Interesting Albums on the Chart for the week of December 21, 2011

A Few more interesting facts for the week of December 21, 2011

• Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey has now scanned over 1 million copies.
• Martina McBride’s Eleven has sold over 119,000 copies.
• Justin Moore’s Outlaws Like Me has shifted 324,000 copies
• Rascal Flatts has sold 1.03 million copies of Nothing Like This.
• Jake Owen’s moved 176,000 copies of Barefoot Blue Jean Night as “Alone With You” rises the charts.
• Chris Young’s Neon has sold over 243,000 copies.
• With massive sales increases, Darius Rucker’s Charleston, SC 1966 hits the charts this week with sales now over 550,000.
• Ronnie Dunn’s self-titled debut re-enters the chart this week with sales passing 174,000 copies.
• Hunter Hayes has now sold over 55,000 copies of his debut album as Storm Warning continues to move up the Top 20.
• Trace Adkins re-enters the charts this week with Proud To Be Here hitting 196 on the chart and selling over 4,000 copies. The longtime radio star has now sold over 139,000 copies of this ‘come back’ record.

Next week’s chart will reflect the final physical purchases of the Christmas shopping season and as such it should be another strong week at retail for country music. As always, come back here to see how things shake out.  Also, we’d like to take this time to wish you and yours a safe and happy Christmas or Hanukkah season!