CMT News

Country music again tops the pop albums chart, thanks to Taylor Swift, who sold 592,000 copies of her second album, Fearless, during its first week of release to debut at No. 1 on Billboard's country albums list and the all-genre Billboard 200. In doing so, the 18-year-old singer-songwriter's album exceeds the first-week sales of new albums from American Idol runner-up David Archuleta and R&B artist T-Pain. Archuleta's self-titled debut album enters the chart at No. 2 after selling 183,000, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. The 19th volume in the multi-artist Now That's What I Call Music! compilation series sold 172,000 units and makes its chart entry at No. 3. T-Pain's Thr33 Ringz debuts at No. 4 with sales of 167,000. Swift's latest single, "Love Story," remains at the top of Billboard's country singles chart for a second consecutive week. Fearless has racked up the highest first-week sales for a country album since November 2007 when the Eagles sold 711,000 copies of Long Road Out of Eden.