Alison Krauss & Union Station Fly to #1 On Country Album Chart

Leading-off the second half of the Top 10 SoundScan country albums is Rascal Flatts with their consistent and strong-selling Nothing Like This. It remains to be seen if a third single will come off the album or not as the trio is already working on the follow-up which will be released in the fourth quarter of 2011. Either way you slice it, this record looks like it will eventually become the group’s latest platinum album. 2010’s breakout stars Lady Antebellum ARE working on a new record and they’ll be releasing the lead single from the album soon but until then, they remain on the charts with Need You Now.  The album has now sold 3.4 million copies and is followed by Sara Evans, who has this week’s #8 record with Stronger.  The singer’s comeback album has now sold more than 130,000 copies and it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’ll wind up with a #1 hit with the defacto title track “A Little Bit Stronger.”  The Band Perry look to score their second Top 10 hit with “You Lie” and are riding the high of being the ACM’s Top New Artist  for 2010 and as of this writing, the trio has officially scanned Gold for scanned units over 500,000 copies.  Rounding out the Top 10 on the SoundScan chart is Sugarland with The Incredible Machine.  The duo has released “Tonight” as the third single from the album and with 53,000 more copies sold, the album will officially be a Platinum recording.

Aaron Lewis hasn’t scored a Top 10 country chart hit as of yet but he does have this week’s #11 album (after weeks in the Top 10) with Town Line, his solo debut for Stroudavarious Records after years of playing solo gigs outside of his Platinum rock band Staind, of which he’s the frontman of. Miranda Lambert and Revolution is second in the #11-#15 section of this week's rundown as the ACM Top Female Vocalist of 2010 finds her album –which won Album of the Year the year prior to this – with nearly 1.3 million copies sold as “Heart Like Mine” sits at #3 this week, ahead of Sony label mates Evans Kenny Chesney, respectively.  The Zac Brown Band is the only repeating artist on the chart this week, thanks to their national debut The Foundation still scoring with audiences three years after it came out.  The record has sold nearly 2.6 million copies in that time. New Stoney Creek Records duo Thompson Square sit at #14 with their self-titled debut.  With recent #1 “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not” now recurrent on the radio charts, the husband and wife duo looks to return to the charts with just released “I Got You.”  The previously mentioned Kenny Chesney sits at 15 with Hemingway’s Whiskey. The superstar has sold nearly 800,000 copies of the album as he gets ready to hit #1 for the third consecutive single from the album with “Live A Little” sitting at #2 this week.  Chesney will likely release “You And Tequila,” a duet with Grace Potter, as his follow-up single.

The soundtrack More Music From Country Strong, an iTunes Exclusive,  re-enters the charts this week as the #16 album on SoundScan’s chart rundown and it is immediately followed-up by Loaded…The Best of Blake Shelton, the superstar’s first ever greatest hits collection, a recording which has now sold over 230,000 copies without the beneifit of any compilation-specific tunes to lure long-time fans to purchase the album.  Tim McGraw’s two-disc, career-spanning Number One Hits did feature a collection-exclusive “Felt Good On My Lips,” and that song has helped the album attain Gold status with the recording now sitting at 326,000 copies sold.  There’s an outside chance that in the next couple of years, this recording moves the 134,000 more copies it needs to gain Platinum status (as a catalog recording that’s likely to be stocked by Target, Best Buy and Walmart, the chances are very good that this happens).  Kenny Rogers Cracker Barrel-exclusive, Love of God sits at #19 this week and has now sold over 52,000 copies, which isn’t bad for a spiritual recording by a veteran, non-radio hitmaking artist.  Darius Rucker’s Charleston, SC 1966 rounds out the Top 20 with the recording at 447,00 copies sold.  The country sophomore has now scored five #1 hits, with current single “This” hitting the top of the charts this week (“Come Back Song” is also a #1 hit from this album).

Billy Currington’s new single “Love Done Gone” is already making waves as the burgeoning star inches closer to 300,000 copies sold of Enjoy Yourself. “Let Me Down Easy” and “Pretty Good At Drinkin’ Beer” both are #1 hits from the album.  Jerrod Niemann is currently in the Top 10 with “What Do You Want.”  The artist also has the multi-week #1 from 2010 with “Lover, Lover” on his debut album Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury.  Look for an uptempo single to come next from the album, which is this week’s second most-interesting album that we’re looking at on the SoundScan charts this week.  Last week, Craig Campbell sold over 7,000 copies if Craig Campbell thanks to “Family Man” scoring with radio and audiences.  This week he slides a few places (and out of the country Top 20) but he retains our interest this week and has now sold nearly 12,000 copies in two weeks on the charts.  As the strong reviews and singles keep coming along, there’s not a doubt in our minds that Craig Campbell will start to have a strong-selling album on his hands.  Eric Church’s Carolina now sits at over 440,000 copies sold and if it could manage to sell those 60,000 more copies, it’d give the rockin artist his first Gold record, something that he’d love to have join his gold-selling singles like “Hell On The Heart” and “Smoke A Little Smoke.” Keith Urban’s Get Closer rounds out the interesting albums section this week thanks to “Without You” hitting the Top 10 on the Billboard singles chart this week. 

Next week is a quiet chart week but we’ll undoubtedly keep you covered as we look at it in this very same place at the very same time.