Scotty And Lauren Lead Country Sales, Making History this week, marking the first time in country music history that two teenagers are placed 1 and 2 on the Country Albums Sales Chart! After having last week’s #1 album in America, Scotty McCreery slides down three slots to #4 but he retained the #1 country album for the week. Right behind him on both charts is his Idol friend and runner-up Lauren Alaina. Lauren sold just over 69,000 copies of Wildflower, a number that was 21,000 copies higher than the Gold-selling Own The Night from Lady Antebellum And nearly 30,000 more than Lauren’s idol, Martina McBride, who sold slightly more than 40,000 copies of the fantastically reviewed Eleven.  Today marks the first time since 2008 that American Idol’s winner and runner-up both posted Top 5-charting albums. The David’s (Winner David Cook and runner-up David Archuleta) achieved the feat. 2011’s best-selling country album, Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party rounds out the Top 5 with another 19,000 copies rung up.

The Top 5 Country Albums For week of October 19, 2011:

*Note: Sales Numbers Rounded to Nearest Thousand.

Hunter Hayes Debuts Strong as Everybody Get, Everybody Gets Footloose…

The footloose soundtrack, which features a Hunter Hayes duet with Victoria Justice on the remake of “Almost Paradise” amongst other remakes from Blake Shelton, Ella Mae Bowen and Jana Kramer, jumped from 117 last week to number 16 on the SoundScan Top 200 Current Albums chart.  Hayes, whose debut single “Storm Warning,” is number 23 on Billboard’s Top Country Songs chart, debuts strongly with his self-titled album at 18 overall. The 20 year-old virtuoso musician scored a #7 country debut with 18,000 copies sold. Luke Bryan, Rodney Atkins, and Brantley Gilbert followed next, with 17k, 15k, and 14k sold this week, respectively.  They rounded out this week’s Top 10

Top 6-10 Albums For Week of October 19, 2011

Eric Church’s “Chief” Goes GOLD as Single Rises the Charts

While Eric Church still has over 100,000 scanned unites to go before the album is in the hands of a half a million fans, Chief was certified GOLD recently by the RIAA for shipment sales of 500,000 copies while “Drink In My Hand” hits the Top 20 of the radio singles chart in only 9 weeks, making it the fastest-rising single of his career. Other interesting albums we’re keeping an eye on are George Strait’s Here For A Good Time. It rolls past the 200,000 copies sold mark in the third week on the charts while, Blake Shelton has passed the 350,000 mark with Red River Blue. The Band Perry’s self-titled debut has now scanned 800,000 copies while Lady Antebellum’s second album on the charts (#18 on the country chart), Need You Now has now sold nearly 3.69 million copies. Finally, Justin Moore’s Outlaws Like Me has now sold 268,000 copies as “Bait a Hook” climbs the radio singles chart.

Five Interesting Albums For The Week of October 19, 2011

Final interesting notes for the week of October 19, 2011:

• 1/3 of the Top 45 selling albums in the USA belong to country music artists. The top 10 was joined by the latest albums from George Strait, Eric Church, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton and Pistol Annies.
• 22.5% of the SoundScan Top 200 Current Albums chart is country music releases.
• Keith Urban returns to the Top 200 charts with Get Closer and has now sold 650,000 copies of the album with #1 hits “Without You” and “Long Hot Summer.”