Weekly Register: Luke Bryan Checks In At No. 1

Luke Bryan’s Spring Break…Checkin’ Out, the final project in the series, checked in at No. 1 on the country albums chart today (March 18) with sales of 89K. When combining the regular and Walmart ZinePak exclusive (which contains all the Spring Break albums), the new album tallied 95K.

Bryan wrapped his seventh and final year of two-day spring break concerts at the Spinnaker Beach Club in Panama City Beach, Fla., on March 11 and 12. Local officials estimated over 200,000 fans gathered each day. The spring break albums and concerts began in 2009 as a way to bring fans new music between studio releases.

Elsewhere on this week’s album chart, Eli Young Band’s EP, Turn It On, debuted with 4K. And BMLG labelmate RaeLynn offered her new song, “For a Boy,” which entered the tracks chart at No. 3 country, selling 27K.

Top 5 Country Albums this week
Luke Bryan, …Checkin’ Out, 89K
Sam Hunt, Montevallo, 15K
Shania Twain, Live In Vegas, 9K
Jason Aldean, Old Boots New Dirt, 7K
Luke Bryan, Spring Break…Checkin’ Out, Walmart/ZinePak, 6K

Top 5 Country Tracks this week
Sam Hunt “Take Your Time” 55K
Zac Brown Band “Homegrown” 42K
RaeLynn “For a Boy” 27K
Cole Swindell “Ain’t Worth The Whiskey” 25K
Miranda Lambert “Little Red Wagon” 25K

On the all-genre charts, the Empire TV show soundtrack pounced into No. 1 on the Top 200 with 130K total activity (110K album only), holding Madonna to a No. 2 debut with 121K (116K album only).

Year To Date
overall album sales -1.3%
overall digital albums +2.9%

country album sales -16.4%
country digital albums -9.2%

Upcoming Releases

March 24
Striking Matches/Nothing But The Silence/I.R.S.
Easton Corbin/It’s About To Get Real/Mercury Records Nashville
Canaan Smith/Canaan Smith [EP]/Mercury Records Nashville

March 31
Darius Rucker/Southern Style/Capitol

April 7
Kristian Bush/Southern Gravity/Streamsound Records
Will Hoge/Small Town Dreams/Cumberland-Thirty Tigers

April 14
Reba McEntire/Love Somebody/Nash Icon
Dwight Yoakam/Second Hand Heart/Reprise

April 18
Lee Ann Womack/Trouble In Mind [Record Store Day limited edition 12″ vinyl]/Sugar Hill

April 28
Zac Brown Band/Jekyll + Hyde/Southern Ground-John Varvatos Records-BMLG-Republic Records
Tyler Farr/Suffer In Peace/Columbia Nashville

May 5
Chris Stapleton/Traveller/Mercury Records Nashville