August is “respect your country elders” month, it seems: Reba McEntire takes the top spot on this week’s Billboard 200 with 96,000 copies sold of Keep On Loving You, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s enough to unseat last week’s winner, King of Country George Strait, who falls to No. 2 with 61,000. For those keeping score, this is Strait’s 26th album and McEntire’s 31st. Whew.
Rounding out the Top Three is Third Eye Blind, who sold 49,000 copies of Ursa Major. For a band whose last album came out six years ago and whose last hit was three years before that, 49K is nothing to sneeze at. Looks like 3EB’s life is still semi-charmed, after all.
Elsewhere on the chart, Sean Paul enters at No. 12 with a not-particularly-imperial 28,000 units moved of Imperial Blaze. Lead single “So Fine” hasn’t caught fire yet, but perhaps one of the dozen other extremely catchy dancehall bangers on the album will be able to gain some traction in the coming weeks. Down at No. 14, Ledisi, whose Best New Artist nod at last year’s Grammy Awards no doubt helped her in the name-recognition department, debuts with 27,000 copies sold of Turn Me Loose. And MuteMath made it to No. 18 with 18,000 of their Armistice.
What do you think of this week’s numbers? Any surprises?
More from EW’s Music Mix:
George Strait tops the albums chart, outselling Michael Jackson
Chris Brown sentenced: Has justice been served?
Whitney Houston album leaks … on QVC?
Michael Jackson ‘Remix Suite’: How do they measure up to the originals?
i think it’s “So Fine”, not “So Far”, the lead single
Reba’s CD is really good.
Wow, finally no talk of Michael Jackson. It seems we are back to normal.
They just chose not to talk about Michael Jackson. In reality, he still has the #2 best selling album in the country. His Number Ones sold almost 70,000 copies, making it the second biggest seller. His Essential also remained in the top 10 at #9.
Also, Jackson’s “Number Ones” album pushed ahead of Taylor Swift’s Fearless and is now the biggest selling album of 2009 in the US. Of course this is not mentioned here, typical anti-Jackson crap. Oh well, you cannot ignore stats. MJ Rules!
So happy for Reba , her CD is awesome!!!
How’s this stat…most times in a career to be accused of child mosestation. Why are these MJ “fans” always seeming to be on the defensive? I guess country music wins another number 1. Nice to see many genre’s can achieve that.
SCORE FOR REBA! As I understand it, this is her second consecutive album to top the all-genre Billboard 200, following 2007′s REBA DUETS album. With this feat, she also holds the record for female with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard Country albums chart (11), breaking her tie with Loretta Lynn (10).
Go Reba! She’s so awesome, I’m not a “country fan” but I like her. If you like Reba, you can check out her interview wiht Walmart Soundcheck (http://soundcheck.walmart.com/reba-mcentire) <3