Lady Antebellum Gets Another Week at #1

Like Taylor Swift’s Fearless before it, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now continues to drive the album sales market with nearly another 100,000 copies sold this past week.  The trio, which is enjoying a multi-format smash hit in the title track, are going to quickly find themselves headliners on the concert trails.  Their self-titled debut also remains in the Top 15 of the best-selling country records on Nielsen SoundScan’s Hot 200 Album Chart.  The Zac Brown Band returns to their highest chart spot on the country tally with The Foundation now the second best-selling country record of the week.  Gary Allan’s Get Off On The Pain drops a slot to the third best-selling country album this week as the title track goes for adds at country radio.  It’s now moved nearly 90,000 copies in two weeks.  Fearless finds Taylor back in the Country Top 5 of the SoundScan chart this week after being out of it for the first time since its release last week.  The album has now almost moved 5.7 million copies in its year and a half chart run. Rounding out the Top 5 albums this week is Blake Shelton’s Hillbilly Bone.  The SixPak album will not have another single but it already is close to selling what Blake’s previous album Startin’ Fires sold, just as Blake moves on to SixPak album number two with his next single. 

Carrie Underwood’s back to #6 on the country tally this week with Play On.   Will “Temporary Home” hit the Top spot on the charts or will crossover hit “Undo It” be the song to make this album really move units this upcoming summer? Easton Corbin, who has this week’s #1 with “A Little More country Than That,” sits right behind Carrie Underwood with his self-titled debut album.  I wonder how many people still think that’s a George Strait song (and will think “Roll With It,” the next single, is as well). Next up is the Jeff Bridges-led Crazy Heart soundtrack which is immediately followed-up by Danny Gokey’s 19/RCA debut My Best Days.  Thanks to a hit single and a loyal fanbase, Danny has now sold over 102,000 copes of the album in a few short weeks.  Rounding out the Top 10 country albums on the Nielsen SoundScan chart is Josh Turner’s solid record Haywire. “All Of Me” is supposedly the follow-up single to “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” a recent #1 hit on the singles charts.

Cash’s Ain’t No Grave leads the 11-15 portion of the chart and is followed by the previously mentioned Lady Antebellum album while the world remains Wide Open for Jason Aldean.  Miranda Lambert’s Revolution is up one this week to 14 and I have no doubts that she will continue to rise as her stunning single “The House That Built Me” continues to impress fans enough to lay their hard-earned cash down to purchase the album.  Darius Rucker’s Learn To Live  rounds out the Top 15 country albums on Nielsen Soundscan’s chart.  With his single “History In The Making” almost, well, history at radio one has to wonder if they’ll release one more ‘tempo’ single from the album or move on to Album #2.

This week’s ‘interesting section' of the chart finds Luke Bryan holding steady as the 16th best selling country album this week with Doin’ My Thing crossing the 275K units-sold mark.  Chris Young is nearing 250k himself with The Man I Want To Be.  The title track is currently climbing the charts.  Brantley Gilbert, signed to Average Joes Entertainment, debuts just outside of Nielsen SoundScan’s Hot 100 albums which will allow him to place near the top of the Billboard Heatseakers chart this week with his first proper AJE album Halfway To Heaven. The record, which hasn’t gotten any Top 40 country love as of yet, is a true grass-roots affair. Brad Paisley’s American Saturday Night saw his #1 streak end with the title track (or “Welcome To The Future depending on the singles chart used) but could see himself run back up the single and SoundScan chart with “Water” now at radio.  Jessica Harp rounds out this week’s round-up as her “A Woman Needs found 2,918 homes despite being ‘only’ a digital release, giving the recently ‘retired’ performer a place on Nielsen SoundScan’s Hot 200 Albums chart.

Next week teen idol Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0 is going to be the chart-topping album on the SoundScan charts but it will be interesting to see how many albums Lady A sells of if Bieber’s posse of tween fans will want Lady A’s record at the same time they get Bieber’s first full-length album.