Carrie Underwood’s "Carnival Ride" Tops Charts

Carrie Underwood continues her record-breaking ways with the success of her sophomore album Carnival Ride, which debuted atop Billboard’s Top Country Albums and Billboard 200 charts with first-week sales totaling 527,101. This number marks the highest first-week sales for any female artist this year! With a 60% increase over Carrie’s debut-week sales of her six-time platinum album Some Hearts (which tallied 314,549), Carnival Ride achieved the highest-debut sales for any sophomore country album in SoundScan history. Adding to the album’s accolades, Carnival Ride also became the largest country debut in digital album chart history with digital sales of 44,928. In anticipation of the album’s release, the Season 4 American Idol winner has been keeping busy with numerous media appearances, including her performance of the National Anthem at Game 3 of the World Series. While Carrie continues making a variety of media appearances, she has the CMA Awards to look forward to, where she is not only a performer, but a triple nominee as well (Female Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year, and Music Video of the Year). Carnival Ride’s first single, “So Small,” is currently a Top 5 single in country airplay, following up a string of four consecutive #1 country singles from her 19 Recordings/Arista Records/Arista Nashville debut Some Hearts – the best-selling, single-disc country album by a solo female in the new millennium. With sales topping 1.3 million copies this year, two years after its release, Some Hearts remains the best-selling country album of 2007. Congratulations to Carrie from AmericanIdol.com! Check out our newest transformation gallery to witness the American Idol alumna’s transformation from small town girl, to music superstar! Amidst the release of her second album and a flurry of media appearances, Carrie took some time out to answer your questions and you can check out our exclusive interview in our video section!