Amy Winehouse Climbs, Eric Church Tops Album Chart

Third time has proven to be a charm for country crooner Eric Church, who’s third studio LP Chief soars to #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart on the strength of 145,000 copies sold in its first week. This marks the second time in the past month a record by a country artist has topped the main album chart, following the #1 success of Blake Shelton’s Red River Blue. Meanwhile, Amy Winehouse’s 2007 LP Back To Black continues its climb following the singer’s death two weeks ago. Last week Back To Black jumped back into the Top 200 at #9 with 37,000 copies moved. This week Amy’s Grammy-winning set of pop-soul jams moves up to #4 with another 54,000 sold. Billboard also notes that Winehouse’s debut LP Frank is up to #33 (12,000).

Kelly Rowland’s third solo LP Here I Am debuts at #3 (77,000), thus besting the #12 peak of 2002 album Simply Deep and #6 peak of 2007’s Ms. Kelly.

That leaves Joss Stone as the only other new debut in the upper tier of the Top 200 this week, at #9 with her David A. Stewart-assisted fifth album LP1 (30,000).

The Top 10 Of Billboard‘s Top 200 Chart:

1. Eric Church, Chief *new* 2. Adele, 21 3. Kelly Rowland, Here I Am *new* 4.Amy Winehouse, Back To Black 5. Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party 6.Beyonce,4 7. Kidz Bop Kidz, Kidz Bop 20 8. Blake Shelton,  Red River Blue 9. Joss Stone, LP1 *new* 10. Bad Meets Evil, Hell: The Sequel