Weekly Register: Summer Slump Lingers

Josh Thompson

Summer sales are plodding along without many noteworthy country debuts. As a result, year-to-date sales are shrinking.
Josh Thompson’s “Cold Beer With Your Name On It” brought a sip of relief this week, selling 12.5K tracks out of the gate. It is his first release on Show Dog Universal Music and has an official radio add date of Aug. 12.
The latest album from revered songwriter Guy Clark, My Favorite Picture of You, debuted with 5.6K units.
In the rest of the country world, Florida Georgia Line continued its reign at No. 1 on the albums and tracks charts. Here’s To The Good Times sold 30K for a RTD total of 917K, and “Cruise” kept speeding with 119K TW for a RTD total of 5.4 million (both versions combined).
Pop hitmaker (and Taylor Swift bestie) Selena Gomez had the week’s highest album debut with 97K.
The Vince Gill & Paul Franklin album Bakersfield was released Tuesday by MCA Nashville, so next week’s report will include sales numbers for it.
On the horizon in August are albums from new Warner Music Nashville artists Brett Eldredge (Aug. 6, Bring You Back) and Charlie Worsham (Aug. 20, Rubberband) which are getting good word of mouth around The Row. The lone release from a star next month is Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party (Aug. 13, Capitol Nashville). Lead single and title track is burning hot, selling 66K downloads this week for a RTD total of 1.1 million.
Meanwhile the Show-Dog Universal project Alabama & Friends, set for release Aug. 27, has real hit potential (remember Lionel Richie’s Tuskegee?).