As expected, last week’s sales numbers for Country music reflected the remarkable ratings that the 44th Academy of Country Music awards received on Sunday April 4th.  The sales for last week included a gigantic debut from Rascal Flatts’s new record “Unstoppable,” and a six-figure sales debut for Jason Aldean (who, if he’d waited one more week to release that album could’ve gotten a #1 debut on all charts).  Taylor Swift’s Fearless rebounded fro #10 to #6 on the charts with her record now comfortably past triple platinum in scanned sales (it’s already shipped over 4 million copies).  A remarkable feat is that four of the top 10 albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 Chart (which is published by Billboard) were country albums.  Rounding out the Top 5 Country albums on the chart is Carrie Underwood with her massively successful “Carnival Ride.” 

The Top 10 country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 chart include Jamey Johnson’s critically acclaimed “That Lonesome Song,” Sugarland’s “Love On The Inside,” the four times platinum self-titled Taylor Swift debut,  Zac Brow Band’s “The Foundation” and “Learn To Live” from Darius Rucker.  It is interesting to note that every album listed here enjoyed remarkable sales increases over the previous week.

The Next five albums listed here include the 11th-13th highest charting Country albums on the SoundScan Hot 200 chart but the last two albums from Kellie Pickler and Trace Adkins are interesting to note because both went from being outside the top 200 selling albums of the week last week to sitting at 116 and 124 respectively.  Pickler’s self-titled sophomore album has now sold nearly 200,000 copies, while Adkins’ “X,” buoyed by his stunning performance of “’Til The Last Shot’s Fired” with the West Point Cadet Glee Club, has now passed the 160,000 unit sold mark.  The 11th-13th albums include, in order, Lady Antebellum’s gold self-titled debut, Rodney Atkins’ two-week old “It’s America,” and Billy Ray Cyrus’ new “Back To Tennessee.” Cyrus’ album debuted at 41 on the charts.  It is also interesting to note that Rascal Flatts’ 600,000 selling “Greatest Hits, Vol. 1” album and John Rich’s three-week old “Son of a Preacher Man” both landed inside the Top 50 albums sold this week, giving country music 15 of the Top 50 albums after having 11 of the top 100 last week. 

Other albums in the Top 100 on this week’s SoundScan chart included the latest albums from Martina Mcbride, Alan Jackson, George Strait, Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.  That gives the genre 21 percent of the week’s Hot 100 albums, which proves that country fans are still buying albums, even if they’re only doing so after a major awards show.