Lady Antebellum tops country music scene

Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — lead several Billboard’s country and pop year-end tallies.


Reuters December 12, 2010

NASHVILLE: Lady Antebellum, which Billboard tipped as an artist to watch two years ago, closes this year as the hottest act in country music and beyond.

The trio — Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — leads several of Billboard’s country and pop year-end tallies. The year-end music recaps are based on chart performance during the year that began with last year’s December 5 issue and ended with the November 27, 2010, issue.

The group, which formed in 2006 has scored honours from the Country Music Association (CMA), the Academy of Country Music and the Grammy Awards, has taken the country music scene by storm and has quickly spread its proverbial wings into pop formats with success.

Lady Antebellum is number one on the Top Country Album Artists chart (besting Taylor Swift, no less), the Top Country Albums recap with Need You Now (Capitol Nashville), the Hot Country Songs Artists tally, the Country Digital Songs recap with the title track from Need You Now and the overall Top Country Artists recap.

But that’s not all. The group also leads pop recaps including Top Artists-Duo/Group and Top Billboard 200 Artists-Duo/Group.

Kelley, Scott and Haywood co-wrote a number of songs on both of their albums and served as co-producers with Paul Worley on their sophomore effort, which was released on January 26 and scanned 481,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Their album topped the Billboard 200 and spawned three numbers one spots on Hot Country Songs with their tracks,  “Need You Now,” “American Honey” and “Our Kind of Love.”

The year-end recaps of Top Country Album Artists and Hot Country Songs Artists reflect the current changing of the guard in country music. The top 10 acts at the upper reaches of the former tally include Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift, the Zac Brown Band, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Jason Aldean. Of these, only Lambert released a major-label single before 2005.

On the Hot Country Songs Artists year-end chart, Lady Antebellum, Underwood, the Zac Brown Band, Aldean, Lambert and Luke Bryan account for six of the top 10.

The combined sales and airplay tally tells a similar tale with Lady Antebellum, Swift, the Zac Brown Band, Underwood and Lambert leading the way.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given their relative youth, country’s next wave dominates the digital sales charts as well. Swift, Lady Antebellum, the Zac Brown Band, Underwood and Aldean, respectively, are the top five Country Digital Songs Artists.

At the close of 2010, Lady Antebellum and Swift garnered four of the top 10 Country Digital Songs titles of the year.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2010.

COMMENTS (1)

ismaeel | 13 years ago | Reply Love the song, Need you now....
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