Soundscan: Sugarland Gets Upswing

• Sugarland gets a sales boost
• Country absent from this week’s all-genre Top 25
• Country album sales down 12.5% YTD
• All-genre and country digital album sales up 13% YTD

Sugarland’s performance of “Stuck Like Glue” on American Idol last week translated into a nice sales bump for the duo. Downloads of the track jumped 89% (16K) over last week, and album sales grew 24% (2000 units).
Meanwhile, UMG Nashville labelmate Josh Kelley is trying to gain traction with his country debut, which entered the chart this week with sales of 6000+ units. The lead single/title track “Georgia Clay” saw a 73% increase over last week, and has sold 9000+ downloads RTD.
The all-genre Top 200 saw a big 38.5% boost (1.741 million units) over last week, thanks to tons of new product. Unfortunately none of those releases were from the country camp, which isn’t represented anywhere in the chart’s Top 25. Jason Aldean, No. 1 on the Country Album Chart, comes in at No. 26 on the Top 200 with 19,000+ units this week.
On the Top 200, seven of the top 10 albums are debuts, including Chris Brown entering at No. 1 with 270,000 units, followed by Jennifer Hudson at No. 2 with 165,000.
All-genre album sales are down 5% compared to last year, while country album sales are in the hole 12.5%. Digital album sales—country and overall— are up about 13% YTD.