Sara Evans Scores a Stronger than Expected Sales Debut

Taylor Swift’s Speak Now is the #6 best-selling country album this week and is just over 100,000 copies behind Lady Antebellum to gain the status as the top-selling album released in 2010.  Zac Brown Band experiences a dip down with You Get What You Give but they officially have sold ¾ a million copies of the album as “Colder Weather” continues to garner some of their biggest reviews ever.  Kenny Rogers first album in a few years, the spiritual Cracker Barrel-exclusisive The Love Of God, bows at #8 on the SoundScan Country Albums chart with nearly 13,000 copies sold.  Lucinda Williams’ Blessed slides down to #9 this week and has now sold nearly 40,000 copies in two weeks whilst Thompson Square rounds out the Top 10 this week with their self-titled album merely hundreds of copies away from eclipsing Steel Magnolia from Steel Magnolia as the best-selling debut album released in 2010 (so far).  The duo’s “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” is up to #3 on the Billboard singles chart this week while also sitting #1 on the iTunes country chart as of this writing. 

The Band Perry slides out of the Top 10 best-selling country albums for the first time in its life-cycle but the recently gold-certified album is all but sure to continue to hit home with audiences as “You Lie” makes its way into the Top 20 and beyond.  Kenny Chesney’s Hemingway’s Whiskey is scoring strongly with audiences as “Live A Little” rockets up the charts.  Sugarland’s getting ready to bring their Incredible Machine tour to a city near you as they move up to nearly 900,000 copies scanned of the album, which features #1 “Stuck Like Glue” (Now on the AC/pop charts) and Top 15 hit “Little Miss.” Tim McGraw may be moving on to his (final?) Curb album at some point in this year but he’s still scoring with audiences as his Gold-selling two disc Number One Hits collection nears 300,000 copies scanned.  It’s only 200,000 copies away from a Platinum certification, a threshold that’s likely to happen sometime in the next year or two as it is the primary ‘collection’ that Curb sells through Wal-Mart and Best Buy.  Miranda Lambert rounds out the Top 15 with Revolution. The award-winning album has now sold over 1.2 million copes, her best-selling album ever. 

The Zac Brown Band’s national debut, The Foundation sits next with over 2.545 million copies now in the hands of the people while Blake Shelton’s Loaded...Best of set has now sold over 200,000 copies since being released last fall.   Billy Currington, with the #1 hit “Pretty Good At Drinkin’ Beer” and the #2 current hit “Let Me Down Easy” has now sold 270,000 copies of Enjoy Yourself.  It’s inching closer and closer to out-selling his previous album A Little Bit of Everything. Darius Rucker has the 19th best-seller this week with his nearly Gold-selling sophomore country album Charleston, SC 1966.  This album features the #1 hit “Come Back Song” and Top 10 current hit “This.” Jerrod Niemann also has a current Top 10 hit in “What Do You Want” and a #1 hit in “Lover Lover” from his current album Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury. He’s now sold nearly 270,000 copies since releasing the album last summer. 

Our interesting album section is lead by Eric Church’s Carolina album and the record has now sold over 421,000 copies as he garnered a Gold certification for the final single from the album, “Smoke A Little Smoke,” last week (Joining “Love Your Love The Most”). Steel Magnolia’s self-titled debut has now sold over 90k since being released earlier this year while Keith Urban, with a fast-rising hit single in “Without You,” has now sold over 550,000 copies of Get Closer (an album which also features #2 hit “Put You In A Song”). Reba McEntire was recently nominated to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this summer and the country icon’s current album (with #1 hit “Turn On The Radio” and Top 20 hit “If I Were A Boy”) All The Woman I Am now over 250,000 copies sold.  Carrie Underwood’s Play On rounds out our rundown as it nears the 2 million copies scanned mark.

Next week we’ll see the arrival of Steve Martin’s Rare Bird Alert and two weeks after that we’ll see where Josh Kelley lands with Georgia Clay.  Keep your feet on the ground and reaching for the stars!