Pistol Annies Shoot Straight To The Top

Pistol Annies

The digital-only debut from feisty female trio Pistol Annies shot straight to the top of this week’s country album chart, debuting with 42K units sold.

Comprised of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, the Sony Nashville group’s first project Hell on Heels marched to the No. 1 slot on the all-genre digital chart.

“Holler Annie,” aka Presley, explains, “Pistol Annies has been an organic, artistically driven project from the beginning and we are so proud that our couch dream has become critically and commercially successful.”

“Lonestar Annie,” better known as Lambert, says, “We are so thrilled and even more inspired than ever. Thank you so much to our country fans. Pistol Annies are here to stay!”

“Hippie Annie,” Monroe adds, “I am completely overwhelmed and humbled…I couldn’t be more encouraged that country music is being embraced so completely.”

Also debuting this week is Sunny Sweeney’s Concrete, which lands solidly at No. 7 on the country albums list with 14K units.

Pistol Annies may have the hottest album on the country album charts, but another trio and Sweeney’s BMLG labelmate, The Band Perry, is still sitting at the top of the digital country singles chart with “If I Die Young.” It sold over 73K downloads this week, and at that pace will likely pass the 3 million mark in the next few weeks.

Bigger picture: Country album sales are up 6.4% over last year, and overall album sales are up 2.4%.

In other related news, Lambert was featured on Dateline NBC this week in a sit-down interview with Hoda Kotb. See clips here. And Lambert and Pistol Annies were both reassigned to new label home RCA today, as previously reported in MusicRow’s breaking news.