McGraw Debut Tops Country Chart
Ghosts and goblins will no doubt be out in force this weekend, but hopefully they’ll also drive consumers into their favorite stores to add Halloween music to their trick or treat treasure bags. Country sales gained momentum for the week ended 10/25/09 with debuts from Tim McGraw and Lyle Lovett who perhaps helped several other Top 10 titles to show some gains as well. According to Nielsen SoundScan a division of The Nielsen Company, McGraw topped country sales with over 136k units (12% digital), enough scans to also earn the Curb superstar a No. 2 position on the Top Current Albums all genre list. (McGraw’s last studio release generated first week sales of 325k in April 2007.) Other Current Country debuts included the irrepressible Lyle Lovett at No. 8 with almost 16k units (45% digital) and duo Bomshel which turned about 6,000 units (18% digital), enough to score No. 24.
2009 Country sales continue to keep pace with 2008, however the remaining nine weeks will pose challenges, for sure. Last year during Nov. we saw debuts from Toby Keith (91k), Rascal Flatts (89k), Brad Paisley (53k), Zac Brown Band (43k) and Trace Adkins (37k). Plus a sophmore debut from Taylor Swift that debuted with 592k units and passed the million unit mark as Nov. ended. That’s some stiff competition for this year’s Nov. debuts which will include an updated Fearless package from Swift and new releases from Carrie Underwood and Josh Turner.
The current year’s top selling country albums include Swift (1.9 million), Hannah Montana (1.6 million), Rascal Flatts (1 million) and Zac Brown Band (918k). Rascal Flatts’ Unstoppable holds the 2009 record for the largest first week country sales with 351k units sold. Of that 351k, 58k were digital—another record!
The big picture continues to show overall all-genre album sales down about 14% and country music sales YTD down a trim 1.5%. Unfortunately, based upon the release discussion above, it seems reasonable to expect the country stat will fall a bit deeper into negative territory by year end.
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Good for Tim, and that was without the full support from country radio, that has been a common thing with Tim for the last few years. He sold more than Brad in his first week and Brad had the support of radio with a huge #1 song. Toby same story big support from country radio with a big #1 song and Tim sold more.
Tim made Billboard history with placing #2 on the Billboard Top 200.
Tim makes Billboard history.
October 29, 2009 4:35 EDT
Tim McGraw debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with “Southern Voice,” a bow that establishes a first in the chart’s 53-year history.
Becoming his 13th top 10,(that is top ten on the Billboard Top 200 for all of music) McGraw has now reached the top tier(top ten) with each of his Billboard 200 chart entries, a discography that dates to his sophomore set, “Not a Moment Too Soon,” in 1994.
Prior to McGraw, no artists had sent their first 13 charted titles into the Billboard 200’s top 10 since the survey’s March 24, 1956, inception.
In setting the new mark, McGraw breaks a tie with an artist who posted his 12th top 10 in his first 12 tries 49 years ago. Between his 1957 arrival and 1960, Johnny Mathis notched 12 top 10s (counting three separate top 10 runs for “Merry Christmas” in 1958, 1959 and 1960 as one title). His 13th charted album, “I’ll Buy You a Star,” peaked at No. 38 in 1961.
http://www.billboard…004031874.story
Why hasn’t Music Row done an actual review of Tim McGraw’s album, haven’t seen one and in fact why didn’t CMT, and the Nashville paper do a review.
Answer: Haven’t gotten a copy of the album yet. Perhaps we aren’t the only ones…
Actually I thought Tim had been enjoying country radio’s support since back in the “Don’t Take The Girl” days. The current single seems to be doing very well on the Music Row charts.
Please! Support Tim at radio, what a joke, he hasn’t had support at radio since 2005. When you have an amazing song like “If Your Reading This” failing to make #1 but you have a awful song like “Ticks” go #1, that’s a joke.