On The Charts: July 10, 2008

As to be expected in a week where nothing major was released, the Top Five country albums remains virtually unchanged from last week. The only change to the top 5 was that Jewel and her "Perfectly Clear" album dropped out while Kenny Chesney had a healthy 17% increase in sales of his "Just Who I Am" record to take the fifth spot and 37th place over all in the Neilsen Soundscan/Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart.

Once again the stars, Including Garth Brooks and his double platinum "Ultimate Hits" collection at 52, were in the upper-reaches of the chart while country's newcomers continue to sell decently as well despite the slow economy. For the record, this is the 23rd week that Taylor Swift has has the best selling country album with her self-titled debut. She also has entered the Top 10 of Billboard's Hot Country Tracks for the fifth time this week with "Should've Said No" while Blake Shelton scores a #1 with his cross-over hit "Home." As for the rest of the album chart, here's a rundown of some other notable albums:

As you can see, Lady Antebellum and James Otto continue to pace these up-and-comers with their debut albums both staying in the Top 100 on the overall album charts. One has to wonder, though, if Dierks Bentley's 9-week-old Greatest Hits was released too early in his career, given its meager sales, or the fact that Montgomery Gentry's "Back When I Knew It All" hasn't sold as well as they had hoped. Country music fans showed their patrioticism during last week's holiday period by purchasing 3,949 untis of the compilation album "Patriotic Country 2" to give it a whopping 6,049 albums sold in its second week on the market. This made it the 162nd best selling album in the United States.