From Billboard:
With the best sales week for a country album in a year, 18-year-old Taylor Swift debuts at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums with her sophomore set, “Fearless.” The Big Machine release sold 592, 000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the largest sum for a country album since Eagles’ “Long Road Out of Eden” started with 711, 000 last November.
“Fearless” shifted 129, 000 copies digitally, the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004. Swift is already No. 1 on Hot Country Songs with “Love Story” and has posted five top 20 debuts on the Hot 100 this year alone.
The next three slots on The Billboard 200 are debuts, with “American Idol” runner-up David Archuleta starting at No. 2 with his self-titled 19 Recordings/Jive album on sales of 183, 000. The 29th edition of the multi-label “Now That’s What I Call Music!” series begins at No. 3 with 172, 000, while T-Pain’s “Thr33 Ringz” (Kovinct/Nappy Boy/Jive) opens at No. 4 with 167, 000.
Congrats David, on a great first week! The continued success of singles released off the album should keep the sales numbers healthy in the coming weeks. David outpaced both T-Pain and the popular compilation series Now That’s What I Call Music. Very impressive.
From Kirsten, stats from Idol 2nd place finishers, posted in this week’s Sales Thread:
1. Clay – …Measure of a Man (Oct 14, 2003) – 612, 859 (# 1)
2. Bo – …The Real Thing (December 13, 2005) – 226, 976 (# 4)
3 David A – “David Archuleta” (November 11, 2008) – 183K (#2)
4. Katharine – …Katharine McPhee (January 30, 2007) – 115, 761 (# 2)
5. Blake – …Blake Lewis (December 4, 2007) – 98K (#10)
6. Justin – …Justin Guarini (June 10, 2003) – 57, 000 (# 20)
7. Diana – …Blue Skies (December 7, 2004) – 47, 000 ( # 52)
I updated the list with David’s numbers. Keeping in mind the steep decline of the last couple of years, (according to Billboard, album sales are down 24% from the same week last year) David’s numbers this week are very good, indeed.
Kirsten also posted stats for all Idols, and David comes in at #10, behind Jennifer Hudson.
