Paisley Still in High 'Gear'

Brad Paisley's 5th Gear remains the top country album in the nation for the third consecutive week. According to SoundScan, 5th Gear sold 59,451 copies, a 27% slide from the previous week. (It's the only country album in the overall Top 10, placing seventh, between Kelly Rowland and Amy Winehouse.)

Paisley didn't have any serious competition from new albums this week. The only three country chart debuts came in at the bottom: Charlie Daniels' Live From Iraq (1,126 copies, in a tie for #72), Vince Gill's Millennium Collection (1,085, #74) and Bill Engvall's 15º Off Cool (1,012, #75).

Only a handful of country albums increased sales last week. Eric Church was the big percentage gainer, with Sinners LIke Me moving up 9% to 4,826 units (back in January, there were weeks Eric barely was selling 1,000 a week.) Keith Urban's Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing picked up 7% to sell 9,635. Tim McGraw's Vol. 2-Greatest Hits was up 3%, at 7,254. Kelly Willis' Translated From Love took the country chart's big fall in its second week out, dropping from a debut of 2,838 to 1,684, a 41% drop, which, percentage-wise, isn't horrible for a second week.

Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" continues to be country's most-downloaded track, with 34,435 downloads for a total of 1,591, 047.