Montgomery Gentry, Swift lead Billboard country charts

Thursday, July 3, 2008 – Montgomery Gentry is number 1 on the Billboard country song chart with "Back When I Knew It All," and Taylor Swift leads the country album chart with her self-titled debut for the week ending July 12. Montgomery Gentry secured the top spot from Kenny Chesney's "Better a Memory," which slipped to third.

On the song chart, Blake Shelton stayed second with "Home." Alan Jackson was up one to fourth with "Good Time." Dierks Bentley moved up two to fifth with "Trying to Stop Your Leaving." Brooks & Dunn was a big mover, up three to sixth with "Put a Girl In It." Keith Anderson's back in the top 10 with "I Still Miss You," the first single from his forthcoming CD, "C'mon."

Jimmy Wayne moved into the top 20 at 20th with "Do You Believe Me Now." Luke Bryan broke into the top 25 - at 25th - with "Country Man."

On the album chart, Toby Keith stayed second with "35 Biggest Hits." Carrie Underwood was up two to third with "Carnival Ride." Jewel was down one to fourth with "Perfectly Clear." Sugarland moved up one to fifth with "Enjoy the Ride."

Miranda Lambert jumped 4 spots to 11th with "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Roots rocking Reckless Kelly debuted in 22nd with "Bulletproof."

On the overall top 200, Swift was 14th, Keith 26th, Underwood 34th, Jewel 36th and Sugarland 39th.

Editorial: There's no Equity – The economic downturn was bound to hurt Nashville sooner or later. And now a few months into the economic disaster afflicting the country, the economy has claimed its first record label – Equity Music Group. The label started with the help of Clint Black, who was its flagship artist. At one point, Little Big Town also was on Equity, and reached new career heights after not getting the love at SonyBMG. »»»
Country Musings: Sturgeon, Rimbaud, Buck and Me – Sturgeon's Law states that 90 per cent of everything is crap. And that includes music, of course. I submit that there are two exceptions to this rule: 1.) crap percentage is somewhat higher on modern day country radio, and 2) when you're young the operands in this equation are reversed, i.e., 90 percent of everything is pure gold. I remember when I was a kid taking a car trip somewhere with my dad. He wanted to change the radio station to listen to a basketball game. I asked him to wait till the song that was playing ("Valleri" by The Monkees) was over as it was my favorite song. »»»
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