In any other week, the first-week sales of Jason Aldean’s new album Night Train would be a very big deal.

The disc, a follow up to his double-platinum smash My Kinda Party, sold 409,000 copies in its first seven days — a huge number by any measure, and the second-best debut sales week of 2012 behind Mumford & Sons’ Babel, which moved 600,000 copies in its opening frame.

Unfortunately for Aldean, news of his chart-topping feat arrives less than a day after projections for Taylor Swift’s Red blew up the internet. Swift, who sold over 500,000 copies of Red in its first day, is expected to sell over 1 million copies in her first week, which would make her the first woman in history to have two albums sell more than 1 million copies in their first weeks. Yowza.

But let’s get back to Aldean’s accomplishment. Night Train is the rocking country star’s first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. He formerly peaked at No. 2 in 2010 with My Kinda Party, but was kept out of the top spot, funnily enough, by Taylor Swift, whose Speak Now was reigning atop the chart.

Considering My Kinda Party became an enduring hit, ultimately moving 2.8 million copies, I’m expecting Night Train to be a freight train with buyers. After all, Aldean is selling out arenas across the country, and he (along with everyone else releasing albums in the final quarter of 2012) will get a big boost from the holiday buying rush. READ FULL STORY »