Another week has gone by and yet here we are with Lady Antebellum still leading the way on the charts.  Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now (a record with two #1 singles) will most likely pass the two million albums scanned mark next week while Zac Brown Band’s Foundation isn’t all that far behind two million scanned as well.  Miranda Lambert had the third best-selling country album on this week’s Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums sales chart.  The artist is now in the Top 10 of both Mediabase and Billboard singles charts with the compelling “The House That Built Me.” The single is likely to give ‘Ran her second #1 hit in a row, this after she had a hard time even getting two consecutive singles to be Top 15 hits.  She’s officially ‘arrived’ (if Vocalist and Album of the Year ACM trophies didn’t already tell us that). Carrie Underwood’s Play On remains the fourth best-seller this week as the album with three chart toppers looks for a fourth in “Undo It.”  Taylor Swift’s Fearless is over the 5.8 million scanned mark and the album will pass six million sold but it will be another 10-15 weeks before it does that, a time for which her third album is likely to be arriving after.  We should note that former country artists Sons of Sylvia debuted on the chart at 33 with Revelation selling over 14,000 albums, many of which were likely bought by Carrie Underwood fans who know of the trio from their guest spot on Play On.

Mary Chapin Carpenter debuts on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart at 28 with her second Zoe/Rounder album The Age of Miracles and is followed by the Crazy Heart soundtrack which has now found over 200,000 homes.  Willie Nelson’s own Rounder album Country Music is sitting comfortably as the eighth best-selling country album this week while Broadway star Laura Bell Bundy’s debut album Achin & Shakin’ sits at 32 on the Hot 200 Albums chart this week.  Colt Ford’s Chicken & Biscuits album was remained in Country music’s Top 10 albums chart this week and has now found nearly 25,000 homes in two weeks on the charts. 

Lady Antebellum’s self-titled debut still is inside both the Hot 100 half of the Nielsen SoundScan chart and the Top 15 country albums, where it sits at 11th place for the second week in a row.  Alan Jackson’s Freight Train slides down to 12th place this week where he’s quickly followed by Jason Aldean’s Wide Open.  Luke Bryan slides as well ths week but he’s still Doin’ (his) Thing in the Top 15 country albums on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  Easton Corbin sits in that 15th slot this week with his self-titled debut, which has moved nearly 140,000 albums since its release in February.

The interesting section of the SoundScan chart this week starts off with a nice jump for Chris Young’s The Man I Want To Be album.  It was the 16th best selling country album this week and now is nearing the 300,000 sales mark, a figure many major labels now look to as a point when they make all promo costs back on a recording.  The title track may give Young his second #1 single in a row if it can fight off Sony Nashville label mate Kenny Chesney from the top spot after Joe Nichols vacates the spot with “Gimmie That Girl.”  Lonestar returns with their first album without original lead vocalist Richie McDonald as Party Heard Around The World found the homes of over 5,000 fans.  Not bad considering the band hasn’t scored a hit single from the album yet.  Jo Dee Messina’s Unmistakable is the first of three EPs coming out over the next few months.  It features quite a few songs cut over the past few years along with two new live tracks.  It debuts at 109 on this week’s Nielsen SoundSan chart.  Last week people were wondering how Reba’s latest, Keep On Lvoing You, was doing and here’s your answer: it’s almost a Gold record for 500,000 albums scanned.  Rascal Flatts close out the interesting albums this week as they sit over the 1.2 million mark for their Unstoppable album.  The title track is doing well on the charts.  The trio will release their first Disney-Burbank/Lyric Street album later this year.

Next week we’ll see new albums from Zac Brown Band, Chely Wright, Court Yard Hounds and others debut on the chart. As always, check back to see where your favorites placed.  Also, feel free to ask about some artists and we’ll see what we can do next week about getting that info into the article.