Tag Archive for: Sales

RIAA Awards Country Certifications

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darius-albumLoads of Nashville hitmakers received plaques from the RIAA during August and September.

Earning Platinum bling for the first time were Darius Rucker, Zac Brown Band, and Lady Antebellum. The awards were for Rucker’s Learn To Live (Capitol Nashville), ZBB’s The Foundation (Homegrown/Atlantic Records), and Lady Antebellum (Capitol Nashville).

During those months, it’s probably no surprise that Taylor Swift scored the RIAA’s highest album certifications, with her self-titled debut and most recent Fearless both swelling to quadruple-Platinum status.

Rascal Flatts, who already have a multitude of Gold and Platinum Awards, received their sixth Platinum plaque for Unstoppable on Lyric Street.

In August, Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” was certified 2x Platinum for digital single sales. The pop song penned in Nashville is featured on Miley’s Platinum-certified Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack (Walt Disney).

Jason Aldean raked in more brass with three Gold single awards. The Broken Bow artist earned his fourth Gold song cert for “Amarillo Sky,” and Gold mastertones for “She’s Country” and “Big Green Tractor.” Aldean boasts three RIAA-certified albums, his first self-titled album has gone Platinum while his other two Relentless and Wide Open have hit Gold.

Keith, Bryan Post Solid Debuts

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Photo ID (back row L to R):  Director Information Services PJ Olsen,  SE Rep Nathan Cruise, NE Rep Suzanne Durham, VP Promotion Rick Moxley and VP Sales & Marketing Bill Kennedy             (Front row L to R):  Mgr. Media & Marketing Tracy Arnold, General Manager George Nunes, Promotion Coordinator Ali Sparico and Sales, Marketing & New Media Sloane Cavitt  

Show Dog celebration. (Back row L-R): Director Information Services PJ Olsen; SE Rep Nathan Cruise; NE Rep Suzanne Durham; VP Promotion Rick Moxley; and VP Sales & Marketing Bill Kennedy (Front row L-R): Mgr. Media & Marketing Tracy Arnold; GM George Nunes; Promotion Coordinator Ali Sparico; and Sales, Marketing & New Media Sloane Cavitt

Toby Keith debuted at No. 1 on SoundScan’s Country Album chart with about 90K first week sales (10% digital) of his album American Ride (according to Nielsen SoundScan, a division of The Nielsen Company). Luke Bryan’s sophomore album landed at No. 2 on the Country list with a respectable 58K units (16% digital). On the all-genre chart, Keith came in at No. 3, followed by Bryan at No. 6.

Show Dog Nashville sported black and denim in celebration of Keith’s album and multi-week No. 1 single run for “American Ride.” Tonight (10/14) Keith visits the The Jay Leno Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live. He ends the week with appearances on The Bonnie Hunt Show on Thursday and The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson on Friday.

lukeb-cdFirst week sales of Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing (Capitol Nashville) more than doubled his previous debut week from 2007’s I’ll Stay Me. “Do I,” the album’s lead single is currently sitting at No. 5 on the Country Breakout chart, and the video had a 7-week No. 1 on GAC. Bryan has been on an intense nine day, nine city tour to promote the release of his album and he wraps it up tonight in Minneapolis, MN. Then he kicks off his inaugural headlining tour on 10/29, with sponsor Miller Lite.

Other notable debuts this week are from Rosanne Cash (26K), Bill Engvall (3.4K), and Colt Ford (Wal-Mart exclusive CD/DVD 2.3K). To date relatively unknown indie artist Ford has sold 85K copies of his album.

Glancing at other YTD stats, country album sales are down a slight 1.2%, but the digital share of those sales is up more than 50%. 2009 YTD country album market share is 11.8% of total album sales, which is a slight increase from 10.3% in 2008. Heading into the holiday shopping season, will current leaders Taylor Swift and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus maintain position as the year’s best selling artists?

Lambert Scores No. 1 Debut

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miranda-albumMiranda Lambert’s third album Revolution debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart with first week sales of almost 66,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a division of The Nielsen Company. She also brought in the highest debut week digital sales for a country female this year.

With the release of Revolution, she becomes one of three country artists in SoundScan history to have each of their first three albums  enter at No. 1 on the Country Album Chart. The Sony Nashville artist has seen a 20+ percent bump in first week sales between every album.

Lots of positive press and promotion probably helped the sales figures. She has been busy promoting the album with appearances on big-time shows like Letterman, Good Morning America, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Bonnie Hunt Show, E! News and GAC. Among the publications raving about the project are Rolling Stone, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly.

After 27 days on the road, Lambert is at home taking a break before heading back out with Brad Paisley’s tour and her own headlining dates.

Carrie’s Single Sales Explosion

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carrie singleSuperstar Carrie Underwood has the nation’s No. 1 country digital single as “Cowboy Casanova” scored first-week sales of more than 110,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a division of The Nielsen Company. With this achievement, Underwood remains the only solo country artist this year to debut a digital single above the 100,000 mark. It’s the second time she’s accomplished this feat in 2009, having also hit the six-digit mark with this season’s American Idol farewell theme, “Home Sweet Home.”

“Cowboy Casanova” is the lead single from her Nov. 3 Arista/19 Recordings release, Play On, and is the fastest rising single of her career. The music video debuts  tomorrow (10/2) as part of CMT’s multi-artist “Big New Music Weekend” of nine exclusive video premieres. Fans can also look for the video beginning tomorrow on CMT.com, and CMT Pure.

A four-time GRAMMY Award winner, ACM Entertainer of the Year, and reigning, three-time CMA and ACM Female Vocalist winner, Underwood re-teamed with producer Mark Bright for the new album. He also helmed her Carnival Ride collection as well as seven tracks from her 2005 album debut, Some Hearts. To date, Underwood has amassed more than 10 million in U.S. album sales with Some Hearts and 2007’s Carnival Ride.

Swift’s Sales Pass 10 Million Mark

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You can also catch Swift on Sunday night's (9/13) MTV VMAs. Pictured here in an ad for the Awards show.

You can also catch Swift on Sunday night's (9/13) MTV VMAs. Pictured here in an ad for the Awards show.

Just three years after the release of her debut album, Taylor Swift has surpassed the 10 million milestone for album sales. The 19-year-old’s sales tally is comprised of actual full albums sold and doesn’t include track equivalent albums (TEA), which is made up of paid downloads. Additionally, Swift has sold over 20 million paid song downloads, more than any other Country artist.

Swift, who pens all of her own material, released her now quadruple-platinum self-titled debut album in October 2006 on Big Machine Records. She followed it up with Fearless two years later, which has also sold 4 million copies in the US. It has also earned Gold and Platinum certifications in fourteen countries. The singer-songwriter has had singles top both the Country and Pop radio charts, and sold more albums last year than any other recording artist, in any genre of music.

Here’s how she got to the 10 million mark (sales figures provided by Big Machine Records):

Taylor Swift 4,369,749 units US

Fearless 4,020,725 units US

Taylor Swift & Fearless 1,297,059 units International

Beautiful Eyes 256,822 units (Wal-Mart only)

The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection 151,844 units

Love And Theft Debut At No. 10

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love-and-theftWorld Wide Open, the debut album from Carolwood Records trio Love And Theft, bowed at No. 10 on Nielsen Soundscan’s Country Top 75 chart today (9/3). With more than 12,500 units sold first week this gives Love And Theft the top-selling newly released artist album this week. Digital album sales account for 21% of units sold first week. This gives the band the third highest first week sales for a new country artist this year.

With 19,000 paid downloads this week, the band’s hit single “Runaway” takes the top spot with the highest first week digital single sales for a debut country artist this year.

World Wide Open is co-produced by Robert Ellis Orrall and Jeff Coplan. Love And Theft’s Brian Bandas, Eric Gunderson and Stephen Barker Liles co-wrote all eleven tracks on the debut project.

Next up for Love And Theft is an opening slot on Jason Aldean’s headlining tour with shows booked from late September through November.

Nailing Down A Great Debut

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MCA Nashville’s release I’m About To Come Alive by David Nail garners this year’s third highest new artist debut on the country charts. Alive also sits in the Top 20 on the Top 200, and single “Red Light” is Top 40 on MusicRow’s Country Breakout Chart after only eight weeks.

Nail met country legends George Jones and Gene Watson this week as they shared the stage for a taping of the Crook & Chase television show at the Country Music Hall of Fame. The episode, with interviews and performances, premieres Thursday, Sept. 3 at 7 PM/CT on RFD-TV (Comcast ch. 136 in Nashville, Dish Network ch. 231, DIRECTV ch. 345). Re-airs are scheduled for Sept. 4 at 10 AM/CT and Sept. 5 at 6 PM/CT.

(L to R) "Crook & Chase's" Lorianne Crook, David Nail, Gene Watson, George Jones and "Crook & Chase's" Charlie Chase CREDIT: Sandra Petrucci/Copyright Jim Owens Entertainment

(L to R) "Crook & Chase's" Lorianne Crook, David Nail, Gene Watson, George Jones and "Crook & Chase's" Charlie Chase. Photo Credit: Sandra Petrucci/Jim Owens Entertainment

Justin Moore Debuts With 34,000+

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Justin Moore spent time with WBEE/Rochester PD Billy Kidd, pictured above, following a recent concert performance.

Justin Moore’s self-titled debut album for The Valory Music Co. entered the Billboard Country Album Chart this week at No. 3, making it the second highest country debut of a new artist this year. Selling over 34,000 units, it was also the No. 10 release across all genres on the Billboard Top 200 Chart.

On release day, the album quickly peaked as the second most downloaded Country album at iTunes, behind only George Strait. Moore’s album also rose to the No. 8 most-downloaded album of all genres on iTunes.

Driving the sales is hit single, “Small Town USA,” which lands at No. 3 on this week’s MusicRow Country Breakout chart. “Small Town USA” also rises to No. 7 on the Billboard Country Songs Chart this week. The climb makes the rising star one of only three new country artists to enter the Top 10 so far in 2009.

CMT Awards Spike Sales

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brad-paisley-ar10The 2009 CMT Music Awards sparked post-show physical and digital sales for every performer and winner following the live telecast on Tuesday, June 16 on CMT. Here is the data according to the Soundscan charts for the week ending 06/21/2009.

Brad Paisley, a three time trophy winner that night, received one of the biggest sales jumps. He had significant digital track increases for “Waitin’ On A Woman” (+72%) and “Start A Band” (+56%). Digital and physical sales of his album Play increased 52%, bringing its total sales to 244,603.

Award winners seeing a single sales spike: Rascal Flatts’ “Every Day” (+51%), Sugarland’s “All I Want To Do” (+35%), Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” (+31%) and Alan Jackson’s “Country Boy” (+31%).

Performers on the show saw increased album sales (physical and digital):
Darius Rucker (Learn To Live) increased 44% to 717,115
Trace Adkins (American Man Greatest Hits Volume II) increased 43% to 639,071
Toby Keith (That Don’t Make Me A Bad Guy) increased 37% to 397,629
Sugarland (“Love On The Inside”) increased 30% to 1,660,684
Also getting an up in album sales were Lady Antebellum (27%), Jason Aldean (25%), Dierks Bentley (16%), Kellie Pickler (14%), Taylor Swift (10%) Rascal Flatts (9%), Keith Urban (9%) and Paisley as mentioned above.

Performers who had digital track sales bumps for the songs performed on the Awards:
Trace Adkins (“You’re Gonna Miss This”) increased 83%
Lady Antebellum (“Lookin’ For A Good Time”) increased 65%
Darius Rucker (“Alright”) increased 59%
Toby Keith (“God Love Her”) increased 44%
Taylor Swift (“You Belong With Me”) increased 32%
The B-52s, Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban, Kellie Pickler, Brad Paisley and Jason Aldean also saw single increases in the 10-30 % range, following performances.

In addition, each of the six acts who performed on the Nationwide Insurance side stage experienced post-show sales increases. The secondary stage featured up-and-coming artists Jason Michael Carroll, Carter Twins, Eric Church, Eli Young Band, Gloriana and Joey + Rory.

Good First Week For Montgomery Gentry

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311055Montgomery Gentry‘s new Cracker Barrel exclusive album sold over 25,900 copies since its release last week. For Our Heroes set the restaurant chain’s record for first week CD sales, nudging out the previous record holder,  Alison Krauss’ 2005 release, Home On The Highways.

In addition to being one of the top ten country albums for the week, For Our Heroes also landed a spot at #11 on Billboard’s Top 200 chart. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each CD will go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

MG is spending the summer on Kenny Chesney‘s stadium tour, and on June 23 will receive the rare honor of joining the Grand Ole Opry.