CMA Fest & CMT Awards Impact Album Sales This Week

This week's chart numbers - with no big new releases - truly reflected the reach of both the CMT Music Awards and Nashville's CMA Music Festival.  Most of the country albums on this week's rundown experienced great sales gains or at least remained where they were. 

Now in its 21st week, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now album has topped the Hot Country Albums chart each of those 21 weeks.  This week’s Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart shows that the trio is followed by Zac Brown Band’s The Foundation.  Last week’s #2 best-selling country album is Dierks Bentley’s ‘roots’ record Up On The Ridge. Now the third best-selling country album this week, “Up On The Ridge” has sold nearly 60,000 copies.  Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood’s albums Revolution and Play On are fourth and fifth this week and all of these albums experienced sales increases except for “Ride” as CMA Music Fest sales were tallied in this year’s total.

LW TW Artist Album Sales TW Sales Total
8 8 Lady Antebellum Need You Now 40,151 2,292,448
14 12 Zac Brown Band The Foundation 32,330 2,027,035
9 20 Dierks Bentley Up On The Ridge 18,862 58,062
20 21 Miranda Lambert Revolution 18,858 672,360
22 23 Carrie Underwood Play On 16,462 1,608,035

Jewel’s Sweet and Wild sits at sixth place on this week’s Nielsen SoundScan Hot Country Albums chart tally (compiled using the Hot 200 Albums Chart).  She’s sold nearly 47,000 copies of the album, which features the Top 40 hit “Stay Here Forever.”  Taylor Swift’s Fearless is inching ever so closely to the 6 million scanned mark while Clay Walker has now moved nearly 30,000 copies of his sophomore Curb Records album She Won’t Be Lonely Long.  Zac Brown Band’s Pass The Jar.  The 2 CD/DVD package has moved over 75,000 copies while Brooks & Dunn’ #1’s…and Then Some remains the 10th best selling country album this week as it moved 9,000 more units. 

LW TW Artist Album Sales TW Sales Total
11 27 Jewel Sweet and Wild 14,719 46,812
38 41 Taylor Swift Fearless 10,131 5,898,642
16 43 Clay Walker She Won't Be Lonely Long 9,303 29,201
59 44 Zac Brown Band Pass The Jar…Live 9,063 75,757
52 45 Brooks & Dunn #1s and then some 9,048 372,513

Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing is – once again – the eleventh best-seller this week as his single “Rain Is A Good Thing” continues to march up the charts while Wide Open has this week’s “#2 song in “Crazy Town” and sold another 6500 copies to land near 1.220 million copies sold.  Lee Brice’s Love Like Crazy has sold nearly 20,000 copies in two weeks while Brad Paisley’s American Saturday Night moved over seven thousand copies this week thanks to his appearance at the CMT Music Awards (and a popular song in “Water”).  The soundtrack from Crazy Heart moved only two CDs less than Brad Paisley’s album and it now has moved 260,000 albums. 

LW TW Artist Album Sales TW Sales Total
54 47 Luke Bryan Doin' My Thing 8,675 366,698
66 55 Jason Aldean Wide Open 7,473 1,227,005
43 58 Lee Brice Love Like Crazy 7,176 17,644
83 60 Brad Paisley American Saturday Night 7,087 573,630
77 61 Crazy Heart Original Soundtrack 7,085 260,420

Lady Antebellum’s stellar debut album remains a strong seller and is the sixteenth best-selling country album on the Nielsen SoundScan Hot 200 Albums chart.  Easton Corbin’s own self-titled debut album (a stellar release itself) is sitting comfortable at #17 this week with over 175,000 copies sold while “Roll With It” hits the Top 20 this week.  Kenny Chesney’s Greatest Hits II, fresh off of the hit single “Ain’t Back Yet” sits nearly 675,000 copies sold and was the eighteenth best-seller this week.  Josh Turner’s Haywire is next.  It found over 5400 more new homes this week to give the velvet-voiced heartthrob nearly 270,000 copies sold.  Alan Jackson’s Freight Train jumped almost 60 spots on the Hot 200 Albums chart thus giving the country icon the twentieth best-seller this week.  The album also gave country music 20 of the top 100 albums in the country, more than any special ‘genre.’

LW TW Artist Album Sales TW Sales Total
73 66 Lady Antebellum Lady Antebellum 6,650 1,684,992
87 77 Easton Corbin Easton Corbin 6,094 176,138
118 89 Kenny Chesney Greatest Hits II 5,606 664,852
100 94 Josh Turner Haywire 5,417 268,835
156 98 Alan Jackson Freight Train 5,288 168,547

Keith Urban’s cover of Radney Foster’s “I’m In” has helped propel Defying Gravity back up the charts and the album is inching ever so closely to the 850,000 units scanned mark.  Chris Young’s The Man I Want To Be album is next on our tally and it sits at 113 this week with another 4700 albums sold.  Colt Ford continues to surprise folks in Nashville with Chicken & Biscuits moving over the 60,000 albums sold mark, a number that has been reached in just nine weeks, without much radio exposure.  Ford continues to sell out concerts all over the south as well.  Southern Voice from Tim McGraw is now safely over the 705,000 copies sold, in just 35 weeks on the charts.  Rumors are that Curb will move onto Tim’s final album with the label rather than try to squeeze another six singles out of this album (which has had 3 so far).  Toby Keith’s American Ride jumped 22 places on the Hot 200 Albums chart this week and rounds out our coverage of this week’s chart. The star is nearing 400,000 copies sold of his not even year-old album, an album he’s moved on from as “Trailerhood” has entered the charts. 

LW TW Artist Album Sales TW Sales Total
124 108 Keith Urban  Defying Gravity 4,078 849,253
99 113 Chris Young Man I Want To Be 4,723 320,245
122 121 Colt Ford Chicken & Biscuits 4,410 61,963
154 123 Tim McGraw Southern Voice 4,273 705,059
178 156 Toby Keith American Ride 3,640 387,959

Next week we’ll see the arrival of Uncle Kracker’s EP, Jaron and the Long Road to Love’s Getting Dressed in the Dark and Mark Chesnutt’s Outlaw.  Signs point to a high charting debut for Jaron, the singer of “Pray for You” with Kracker and Chesnutt following somewhere behind them.  Perhaps Idol’s Danny Gokey will return to the charts as well.

0 Comments