Country Sales Outpace Overall Industry

SoundScan’s inner numerics held few surprises this week as sales on Country’s Current Top 75 remained flat (-2% to be precise). For the week ended 6/7/09 country sales are down 3.3% Y/Y which continues to compare favorably with the industry overall now down 14%. Lost Highway’s Ryan Bingham debuts on the country list at No. 17, scanning 7,710 units. Dave Matthews’ debut easily captured the No. 1 position on the Top 200 chart with 424,089 units sold (31.61% digital).

Jason Aldean and Keith Urban are fighting it out sales wise. Urban debuted one week before Aldean and is currently 105,308 units ahead of the Broken Bow newcomer. However, Aldean’s CD is gaining ground on the Aussie guitar master. This week Aldean moved 18,222 units and Urban sold 14,974. (Urban’s album sales are 17.75% digital; Aldean’s are 7.35%.)

Top 10 iTunes country track sales include No. 1 Kenny Chesney “Out Last Night” (71k); No. 5 Billy Currington “People Are Crazy” (30k); and No. 10 Jason Aldean “She’s Country” (25k).

New artists with a debut album in the Country Top 30 this week include Zac Brown Band (23,178 units this week), Lady Antebellum (13,533), and Universal South artists Randy Houser (3,062) and Eli Young Band (2,606).