Chris Stapleton Tops Album Chart, Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ Drops Out Of Top 10 After 54 Weeks

Robbie Daw | November 9, 2015 4:00 pm
Justin Timberlake x Chris Stapleton
Watch the two perform at the 2015 Country Music Awards.

Last week’s Country Music Awards broadcast managed to pick Chris Stapleton up from the land of virtually unknown songwriters and plunk him down right at the top of the Billboard 200. The 37-year-old Kentuckian had mainly been known for penning country tunes for other artists — oh, and he also co-wrote “If It Hadn’t Been For Love,” a bonus track on the UK limited edition version of Adele‘s 21 — but he released his debut album, Traveller, this past May. After initially peaking at #14 on the main album chart over five months ago, Stapleton’s LP moved 177,000 units (selling 153,000 copies) in the wake of last week’s performance with Justin Timberlake on the CMAs — enough to send Traveller shooting straight up to #1. (It probably didn’t hurt that he won Album Of The Year, Best New Artist and Male Vocalist Of The Year at the event.)

In fact, country music maintains a stronghold on the upper reaches of the Top 10, as Carrie Underwood‘s fifth LP Storyteller sticks around at #2 for a second week and Eric Church‘s Mr. Misunderstood, his fifth album as well, goes in at #3.

Ironically, onetime country singer turned pop queen Taylor Swift sees her sales juggernaut 1989 finally slide out of the Top 10 for the first time in its 54-week chart run. The album moves down to #11.

The Top 10 of the Billboard 200:

1. Chris Stapleton, Traveller *1 week*
2. Carrie Underwood, Storyteller
3. Eric Church, Mr. Misunderstood *new*
4. Various, NOW 56 *new*
5. The Weeknd, Beauty Behind The Madness
6. Fetty Wap, Fetty Wap
7. 5 Seconds Of Summer, Sounds Good Feels Good
8. Various, We Love Disney *new*
9. Drake & Future, What A Time To Be Alive
10. Def Leppard, Def Leppard *new*

Any surprises with this week’s chart positions? Let us know your thoughts below, or by hitting us up on Twitter and Facebook.