Flatts Set Country Digital Single Sales Tally

Sales for the week ended 3/15/09 remained tepid as Taylor Swift continued to account for almost 23% of the entire Current Country list. Kelly Clarkson’s CD scored Top 200  No. 1 success with a solid debut totaling 254,671 units. Unfortunately, the Idol alum, now managed by Nashville-based Starstruck Management, was unable to match last week’s U2 release which scanned a whopping 484k. This week however, U2 slid back to No. 3 (133k) on the chart with a 73% sales drop. All-music album sales are improving slightly, now down YTD only 11.9%.

In addition to Ms. Swift, Rascal Flatts proved a bright spot for this week’s country division. The band pre-released its single “Here Comes Goodbye” to iTunes last week and according to Nielsen Soundscan it was downloaded 125,884 times. This tops all previous first week paid sales by a country artist for a debut single. The band will pre-release a total of four songs from the upcoming Unstoppable CD leading to its April 7 release. At that time fans can click “Complete My Album” and buy the album minus the cost of the tracks they have already purchased.

Carrie Underwood followed closely behind the Flatts with sales (112,170 units) of her American Idol going-home track, previously recorded by Motley Crüe, “Home Sweet Home.” Next two highest selling country single tracks were from Taylor Swift, “Love Story,” (62,901) and “You’re Not sorry” (50,448). Keith Urban’s latest single, “Kiss A Girl” also debuted this past week with 43,009 units downloaded.

Country Top 75 current album sales stayed below 300k for the second consecutive week continuing to adversely pressure the format’s YTD sales comparisons now off 15.7%.