Now that the official SoundScan numbers for the week are in, it was good to see that both Season 10 finalists saw their album sales increase. Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" increased by 7% (from about 10K to about 11K, with some rounding error in there) and Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" jumped a whopping 41% (from about 3K last week to about 5K this week.) Of course, that really means they both increased sales by about 1,000 units, but that is definitely better than going the other way! "Clear As Day" was able to improve on the charts to #29 (from #34 last week) as predicted by HDD, and "Wildflower" improved to #89 after being #133 last week. Her total sales for her debut have now reached 233K. Both of them now being on major country tours definitely helps (Scotty with Brad Paisley, Lauren with Jason Aldean.) Kelly Clarkson did have a slight drop in numbers from last week, but that is still with a very solid number of 15K which makes her break the 500K mark officially and keeps her at #14 on the BillBoard chart. You cannot say it is due to lack of exposure for Kelly. James saw his sales drop off by 43% this week (from about 4K to about 2K) after a nice increase last week. In fact him and Lauren pretty much switched it up. Last week James sold 4K with Lauren selling 3K, and this week Lauren sold 5K and he sold 2K. So between the two of them they sold 7K together both weeks.
Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" or Tim McGraw's "Number One Hits" could not sneak up on him, and "Clear As Day" again clocked in as the #6 country album of the week. Next week will not be so easy with both Kellie Pickler's "100 Proof" and McGraw's "Emotional Traffic" being released. Let's see if he can at least remain in the Country Top 10.