With media outlets reporting record breaking sales between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, it’s no surprise that overall albums sales are up 62 percent from last week, while Country album sales are up a whopping 94 percent from last week with 1.3 million units sold. Major retailers helped spike Country album sales, offering temporary price cuts on select albums. Walmart provided discounts on Garth Brooks’ Blame It All On My Roots CD/DVD boxed set offered exclusively from the retailer. Meanwhile Target slashed prices on major Country albums, including Carrie Underwood’s Blown Away, Keith Urban’s Fuse, Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party and more.

Brooks’ Blame It All On My Roots (Pearl Records Inc.) is the top Country debut and the top Country album this week (No. 3 overall), selling 163k units. The legendary singer recently announced plans to perform full band shows in Vegas.
Meanwhile, Danielle Bradbery’s self-titled album (Big Machine) debuts at No. 5 (No. 19 overall), selling 41k units. Unstoppable boy band One Direction earns the top overall album this week, with Midnight Memories debuting at No. 1, selling 546k units, which is 6k more than their previous album sold.
Florida Georgia Line’s “This Is How We Roll” is the top Country debut and the top Country track this week (No. 21 overall), selling 52k units. Another noteworthy Country debut is Jamie Lynn Spears’ “How Could I Want More” at No. 8 (No. 42 overall), with 28k units sold. Considering her sister Britney’s pop success, time will tell if Spears garners success in Country. FGL and Luke Bryan hold all Top 5 tracks this week.
Pop stars Pitbull and Ke$hsa take the top overall track this week, with their hit “Timber” selling 237k units (943k RTD). YTD, overall tracks are down 4.4 percent, while Country tracks are up .7 percent.

                           Where Do We Stand?      

YTD, overall album sales are down 7.9 percent, while Country album sales are down 10.2 percent with only four weeks left in the year. Several factors have contributed to a decline in sales, one of the biggest being that last year included releases from highly successful artists, like Taylor Swift’s Red, which sold more than one million units in its debut week. We need to sell approximately 2.6 million Country albums each week, over the next four weeks, to break even with sales from last year. Looks like we need the magic of Santa to get that accomplished. Do you believe?

If we analyze the TEA index (Track Equivalent Albums), where ten tracks equal one album, we see overall and Country album sales improve. With the TEA index in mind, Country album sales are down 7.1 percent (versus 10.2 percent), resulting from adding 15.18 million albums (obtained from taking YTD individual track sales, divided by 10). This analysis for overall album sales results in a decrease of 6.8 percent (versus 7.9 percent).
With the holidays upon us, we’ll be watching sales rise as consumers purchase music to place in a stocking or under the Christmas tree. Sales should also expect a boost from several upcoming televised events featuring Country artists, including The Sound of Music Live! (Dec. 5), The Grammy Nominations Concert Live! – Countdown to Music’s Biggest Night (Dec. 6) and Kelly Clarkson’s Cautionary Christmas Music Tale (Dec. 11).
Next week’s release sales numbers will include Jake Owen’s Days of Gold, Deana Carter’s Southern Way Of Life and The Sound of Music — Music From the NBC Television Event featuring the vocals of Underwood, Stephen Moyer, Christian Borle and more. As the year wraps up, other noteworthy debuts will include Krystal Keith’s Whiskey & Lace, Parmalee’s Feels Like Carolina and Zac Brown Band’s The Grohl Sessions Vol. 1, produced by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.