Can you believe 2017 is already halfway over? Well, it is, which means it’s time to crunch a few numbers.
Over the last six months, a plethora (yes, a plethora) of country artists have released new albums, including offerings from Chris Stapleton, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Lauren Alaina, Brantley Gilbert, Josh Turner, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts and more.
While Chris Stapleton’s new album, From A Room: Volume 1, dominated the country sales charts—selling more than 200,000 more copies than its closest competitor—a handful of other artists have had very successful 2017 releases, too.
Here are the Top 6 country albums released in 2017, based on pure album sales according to Nielsen Music.
- Chris Stapleton, From A Room: Volume 1 (419,000 pure albums)
- Zac Brown Band, Welcome Home (218,000)
- Reba McEntire, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (183,000, which includes metrics from Nielsen’s Christian SoundsScan)
- Brantley Gilbert, The Devil Don’t Sleep (179,000)
- Little Big Town, Breaker (123,000)
- Alison Krauss, Windy City (110,000)
When you factor in equivalent album sales (10 song sales or 1,500 song streams from an album are treated as equivalent to one purchase of the album), Brett Young makes an appearance in the Top 5.
Here are the Top 5 country albums released in 2017, based on equivalent album sales according to Nielsen Music.
- Chris Stapleton, From A Room: Volume 1 (484,000 equivalent albums)
- Brantley Gilbert, The Devil Don’t Sleep (284,000)
- Zac Brown Band, Welcome Home (274,000)
- Brett Young, Brett Young (250,000)
- Little Big Town, Breaker (210,000)
