While Taylor Swift still retains the #1 slot on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week, the presence of country music albums remains high as three of the Top 10, 5 of the Top 20,  6 of the Top 30 and 11 of the Top 40 albums in the USA are country music albums.  Swift’s third album, Speak Now – which features “Mine” and current hit single “Back To December,” has passed the 3,000,000 albums scanned mark while Jason Aldean has passed the 700,000 scanned mark thanks to the title track My Kinda Party and the new duet “Don’t You Wanna Stay” with Kelly Clarkson.  Thanks to the wide release of the film, the various artist soundtrack Country Strong – which features hit singles “A Little Bit Stronger” from Sara Evans and the title song from film star Gwyneth Paltrow – jumped from 133 on the charts to 10 and nearly 1/3 of all of the sales of the album were made last week, where it was the #1-selling iTunes album for a time.  Lady Antebellum’s holiday album Merry Little Christmas jumped from 67 to 12 thanks to steep discounts at Target with nearly 280,000 fans now having picked up a copy since the EP was released before the Holiday season. The trio’s chart-topping sophomore album Need You Now rounds out the Top five country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week thanks to their multi-genre appeal.

The Zac Brown Band leads of the second half of the Top 10 country albums this week with You Get What You Give.  The album has now passed the 600,000 sales mark as they release “Colder Weather” as the second single from the album.  Rascal Flatts’ Big Machine debut Nothing Like This has now sold nearly 560,000 copies as the trio sets up the release of  “I Won’t Let Go,”  the follow-up to the #1 hit “Why Wait.” Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey has now sold over 630,000 copies thanks to #1 hit “The Boys of Fall” and the Top 5 follow-up “Somewhere With You.”  Tim McGraw is currently sitting with this week’s #9 country album.  The album, Number One Hits features all of his Billboard #1 hits, which now includes multi-week #1 hit “Felt Good On My Lips.”  The album has sold just-under 200,000 copies.  Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine rounds out the Top 10 with nearly 800,000 copies now sold.  Hit singles from the project include #1 “Stuck Like Glue” and current single “Little Miss.”

The Band Perry leads the 10-15 section of our rundown this week with their self-titled debut album inching closer and closer to the 400,000 sales mark.  The album features #1 hit “If I Die Young,” the Top 20 hit “Hip To My Heart” and new single “You Lie.”  Following-up that album is the interesting More Music From Country Strong 12-track album which features cast recordings  by Leighton Meester, Garrett Hedlund and star Gwyneth Paltrow with a few selected other tracks (from Hayes Carll, Jypsi, Nikki Williams and Jesse Lee) sprinkled in.  Hedlund and Meester even duet on the song “Give It To Me,” a song which was sung by Faith Hill for the Country Strong Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Keith Urban continues to Get Closer to Gold as he’s just shy of that sales bench-mark with the album.  The lead single “Put You In A Song” still is rising up the charts.  Miranda Lambert’s “Heart Like Mine” is the fifth single from Revolution  and it will likely help the record continue moving towards the 1.5 million copies sold mark this year.  Alan Jackson’s 34 Number Ones (which is really 35 now with “As She’s Walking Away”) lands as the 15th best-selling country album on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart this week. 

After weeks of giving y’all nearly the Top 40 country albums, we’re reverting to our pre-holiday practice of the Top 20 and five interesting albums from stars or up-and-comers.  Leading the 16-20 part of the rundown is Darius Rucker’s sophomore mainstream country release Charleston, SC 1966.  The record has now sold over 360,000 copies thanks to the artist’s fantastic voice and his ability to connect with Country Radio listeners via the #1 single “Come Back Song” and current radio hit “This.”  Following Darius is Blake Shelton with his first ever best-of collection, Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton. The album features most of his hits, including recent #1 hits “Hillbilly Bone” and “All About Tonight. Current single “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking” is also featured on the disc.  It has now sold nearly 130,000 copies, not too bad considering it featured nothing you couldn’t buy on any of his previously released albums and the two SixPaks (named after the two #1 hits) released before it in 2010.  Zac Brown Band’s The Foundation is next with a sales total approaching 2.5 million copies sold while Taylor Swift’s Fearless has sold over 6.2 million copies since being released in 2008.  Billy Currington rounds out the Top 20 country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart with the 80th best-selling album of the week (giving country music a quarter of the top 80 albums sold).  The album has now sold over 211,000 copies thanks to hits like current radio single “Let Me Down Easy” and the #1 hit “Pretty Good At Drinking Beer.”

The interesting albums rundown begins with recently-nominated ACM Top New Solo Artist Eric Church, whose second album, Carolina, sits at 88 on the Hot 200 Albums chart this week with over 5,200 people taking the album with “Smoke A Little Smoke” home.  Jerrod Niemann’s Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury has eclipsed the 200,000 albums sold mark and sits at 114 this week as “What Do You Want” continues to run up the radio singles charts.  Jamey Johnson may not yet have a large radio hit but his Guitar Song album is about to officially scan Gold as the album sits at 249,536 copies sold this week.  He’ll be releasing “Heartache” to radio next week.  Easton Corbin’s fine debut album Easton Corbin is next in our rundown with the record now past the 307,000 sales mark thanks to #1 hits “Roll With It,” “A Little More Country Than That” and current radio hit “I Can’t Love You Back.”  Rounding out our rundown is Luke Bryan with his Gold-selling Doin’ My Thing. The album features “Someone Else Calling You Baby,” “Do I,” and the #1 hit “Rain is a Good Thing.”

Next week we’ll see where 2011’s first releases from Steel Magnolia and The Grascals land on the chart while also seeing if the music from Country Strong can retain the strong sales push thanks to the film finally being in theaters nationwide.