U2 Knocks Taylor Swift From Top Spot of SoundScan Charts

For but the third time in 2009, Taylor Swift isn't the Top selling album on the SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  With 483,925 albums sold, U2's latest album "No Line On The Horizon" topped the charts, as expected.  With a plethora of hot pop/rock releases now in the pipeline, it will take some sort of chart miracle for Taylor to score a 13th week at the top of the charts.  The biggest surprise on the charts this week is the #3 debut of Alt-Country star Neko Case and her buzz worthy album "Middle Cylcone."  With 44,300 albums sold, the album was less than 8,000 copies from selling as much as Taylor Swift.  Rounding out the Top five Country albums of the week are Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' "Raising Sand" at 26, Darius Rucker's "Learn To Live" at 28 and Zac Brown Band's "The Foundation" at 30.

Swift's three-year old album "Taylor Swift" continues to sell well as it comes in at the sixth best-selling Country record and next week it will surpass the 4 million albums-sold mark.  Sugarland's "Love On The inside" continues to sell as well, as the seventh best-selling Country album.  Carrie Underwood's "Carnival Ride," Dierks Bentley's "Feel That Fire" and Jamey Johnson's "That Lonesome Song" round out the Top 10 Country albums on the chart.  Unlike the last few weeks, all the Top 10 Country albums on the chart were found inside the top 60 albums in the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 chart.

Five more interesting chart numbers follow below as Last week's 13th best selling album has drooped all the way to 61st on the chart.  Jake Owen's "Easy Does It" only moved slightly less than 8,500 units this past week, its second on the charts.  Lady Antebellum continues to sell their nearly year-old album.  With "Sissy's Song" starting its rise on the charts, Alan Jackson's "Good Time" managed to sell three percent more than it did last week. Joey+Rory continue to be a remarkable success story in Country music as their debut album; "The Life Of A Song" continues to sell well, despite only a Top 30 hit.  Their album is continuously outselling the latest albums from Garth, George Strait, Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith.  Garth's "The Ultimate Hits" deserves a mention here as well with the 2 CD, 1 DVD set now having sold over two million copies. 

Next Week, with no major releases released, we should find a similar chart on the country music side.  But it will be interesting to see if Taylor Swift will continue to be a Top 3 presence with Kelly Clarkson's hotly anticipated fourth album debuting.