Chris Stapleton's From A Room: Volume 1 arrives atop Billboard's Top Country Albums chart (dated May 27), earning 219,000 equivalent albums (202,000 of those in pure sales) in its first week (ending May 11), according to Nielsen Music.
It launches at No. 1 on Billboard's all-genre Top Album Sales list and No. 2 on the all-genre, consumption-based Billboard 200.
The 202,000 copies that Room sold mark Stapleton's strongest sales week to date. It's the largest sales week for a country artist since Luke Bryan's Kill the Lights sold 320,000 in its debut week (Aug. 29, 2015).
On Top Country Albums, Stapleton owns the top two positions, as his debut album, Traveller, lifts 3-2 (24,000 units, up 67 percent). (The set has spent 28 weeks atop Top Country Albums and two atop the Billboard 200, selling 1.9 million copies to date.) Stapleton's hold on the Top Country Albums chart's top two slots marks only the second such double-up this decade. On Dec. 31, 2016, Garth Brooks' 10-CD box set The Ultimate Collection entered at No. 1, directly above his holiday set with wife Trisha Yearwood, Christmas Together, at No. 2.
Before Brooks, no artist had held down No. 1 and No. 2 on Top Country Albums simultaneously since Feb. 7, 2009, when Taylor Swift led with Fearless while her self-titled debut ranked at No. 2.
The last male artist to command the top two in the same week on Top Country Albums prior to Stapleton and Brooks? Almost 24 years ago, on the July 10, 1993, chart, Billy Ray Cyrus bowed at the summit with It Won't Be the Last as his first LP, Some Gave All, took second place.
Stapleton co-penned eight of the nine songs on From a Room: Volume 1. The album was produced by Dave Cobb -- who also produced Traveller -- and was recorded at Nashville's Studio A. It's the first of two new planned Stapleton sets, with Volume 2 due later this year.
Lead single "Either Way" debuts at No. 17 on Hot Country Songs, sparked by its No. 3 start on Country Digital Song Sales (23,000 sold).
'HURRICANE' HITS: "Hurricane," the debut single from Luke Combs, ascends 2-1 in its 30th week on Country Airplay, increasing 6 percent to 47.6 million. Combs is the first artist to reign with a first entry on the chart since Granger Smith, whose "Backroad Song" crowned the survey dated Feb. 27, 2016.
"Growing up in North Carolina, I discovered and fell in love with country music through the radio. That shaped so much of my life," Combs tells Billboard. "So it's a full-circle moment to have country radio's strong support of my music and carrying it to fans. I want to thank them for truly changing the game for me."
Combs' debut full-length, This One's for You, is due June 2.
NEW TOP 10s: Florida Georgia Line's "God, Your Mama, and Me," featuring Backstreet Boys, hops 11-9 on Hot Country Songs, fueled by its 13 percent increase to 27.6 million in airplay; on Country Airplay, it strides 10-9.
The song is FGL's 13th Hot Country Songs top 10 (in as many tries, counting officially promoted singles) and BSB's first (in their first trip to the chart). Backstreet Boys have now gone where fellow hit-making boy band 'N Sync first did: the top 10 of Hot Country Songs. 'N Sync hit No. 3 on the chart in August 1999 as featured on Alabama's remake of "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You"; 'N Sync's original unaccompanied version reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1999.
Additionally, Blake Shelton banks his 28th Country Airplay top 10, as "Every Time I Hear That Song" pushes 11-10, up 15 percent to 25.4 million in audience.
