Country Album Billboard Top 200 Chart News January 5, 2012

Country Album Billboard Top 200 Chart News January 5, 2012



Lady Antebellum
Amazon CD Art



Despite a 51% sales dip Lady Antebellum with 53,577 copies of OWN THE NIGHT being taken home by 2012 Lady A’s New Years fans remain top of the Billboard Country Album chart and sit #4 on the overall Top 200 Billboard album rankings. Quite understandable after the post Christmas sales rush all Top 10 Country albums suffered 50%+ sales losses.  Jason Aldean selling 24,502 copies of MY KINDA PARTY moved up to the #2 position as Scotty McCreery with 22,249 fans grabbing a New year copy of his album CLEAR AS DAY drops down a place to #3.  

Luke Bryan’s TAILGATES & TANLINES with sales of 20,705 (-59% loss) moved up 5 places overall on the Top 200 gaining him a #4 spot on the Country album chart. Toby Keith shifted another 17,828 copies (-66% sales loss) of CLANCY'S TAVERN to round off the top 5 places.

Taylor Swift’s SPEAK NOW remained steady at # 6  whilst her SPEAK NOW WORLD TOUR LIVE  combo suffered the worst sales decline with a 78% drop (10,724) and a fall of 40 places on the Top 200 to land at #11 on the country album rating. The Band Perry’s self titled album picked up sales of 16,041 (-67% loss) and maintain a #7 placing. Miranda Lamberts album sold another 12,051 albums of FOUR THE RECORD as the RIAA certified the album a gold status this week for volumes shipped achieving Gold faster than any of her three previous albums and could well pick up increased sales as her US tour gets underway next week.

LW   TW     Artist                   Album

6     4        Lady Antebellum  Own The Night  -- #4 Billboard & #1 Country selling 54K (1.2 million total)

14    18      Jason Aldean       My Kinda Party -- #2 Country selling 24.5K copies (2.26 million total)

11    21      Scotty McCreery  Clear As Day #3 Country Album selling 22K copies (855K total )

28    23      Luke Bryan          Tailgates & Tanlines  -- #4 Country Album selling 20.8K (651K total)

26    32      Toby Keith           Clancy's Tavern  -- #5 Country Album selling 17.8 (336K total)

32    34      Taylor Swift         Speak Now -- #6 Country Album selling 16.7K (3.92 million total)

31    38      The Band Perry    The Band Perry -- #7 Country Album selling 16K (1.06 Million total)

52    50      Zac Brown Band   You Get What You Give -- #8 Country selling 13.3K (1.36 million)

34    57      Miranda Lambert  Four The Record -- #9 Country Album selling 12K (370K total sales)

57    65      Eric  Church         Chief -- #10 Country Album selling 11.4 (543K total)

30    70      Taylor Swift         Speak Now: World Tour -- #11 Country Album selling 10.7K (251K total)

COUNTRY SINGLES NEWS

Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Zac Brown Band remain the #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 Country Songs Chart for the third week running. 

Zac Brown Band with “Keep Me In Mind”  remains top of the charts at  the #1 spot

David Nail with “Let It Rain” moves up 2 from #4 - #2

Eric Church with ‘Drink In My Hand’ jumps up again from #5 - #3

Jason Aldean with  "Tattoos On This Town" drops two places to land at #4

Rascal Flatts “Easy” featuring Natasha Bedingfield also drops #3 - #5

Luke Bryan’s “I Don’t Want This Night To End” stays at #6

Chris Young with “You” also stays put at #7

The Band Perry with “All Your Life” move up one spot to #8

Lady Antebellum with “We Owned The Night” is at #9

Kenny Chesney’s “Reality”  holds its own at #10

Craig Morgan has made it into the top 30 - at 29  with his single This Ole Boy. Lady Antebellum has its latest single, Dancin' Away With My Heart, moved up 7 places from #37 to 30. After a sluggish start Martina McBride’s I’m Gonna Love You Through It bouncing around in the 40’s has gradually made its way up the charts with label promotion  in recent weeks and holds a #12 place.

NEW ALBUM RELEASES due to drop

January 17
#Tim McGraw - Emotional Traffic (Curb Records)
#Martina McBride - Hits & More (RCA Nashville)

January 24
#Kellie Pickler - 100 Proof (BNA Records)
#Randy Travis - Blessed Assurance (Spring Hill Records)
#Neal McCoy - XII (Blaster Records)
#Various Artists - The Music Inside: A Collaboration Dedicated to Waylon Jennings, Volume 2 (Average Joe's Entertainment)

Billboard Album sales review of 2011

U.S. album sales rose more than 3 percent last year for the first gain since 2004 — a sign that rising digital sales are finally stemming the decade-long decline of compact discs. In 2011, Country album sales increased more than four percent over the previous year and a number of Country artists enjoyed crossover success on the pop charts.

The uptick to 458 million album sales was helped by the hugely popular sophomore album "21" from British singer Adele, which sold 5.8 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Huge interest in Adele also led to the sales of 856,000 copies of "19," her debut album from 2008.

Michael Buble's "Christmas," which was released in late October, racked up 2.5 million album sales. Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" sold 2.1 million, boosted by a massive sale at Amazon.com earlier in the year for a heavily discounted 99 cents.

Digital album sales rose nearly 20 percent to 103 million, while CDs fell nearly 6 percent to 225 million.

The rest of the total is made up largely of digital single tracks, where 10 tracks are counted as one album. Digital singles sales rose nearly 9 percent to 1.27 billion.

Sibling trio The Band Perry had the biggest breakout success of any Country newcomer during the past year.  “If I Die Young” was the most downloaded digital Country single of 2011.  Eleven months after its Number One success on the Country chart, the song ascended to the top of the Adult Contemporary list.  The Band Perry’s follow-up hit, “You Lie,” ranks at Number Five on Billboard’s yearend Hot Country Songs chart