Nashville gives rivals a run for the money

Is pop music getting its twang back? It wasn’t that long ago that Nashville was singing the blues because of eroding sales. But suddenly country looks hot again.

If George Strait’s new career-spanning hits collection, “50 Number Ones,” goes to No. 1 on the national album sales chart on Wednesday, it will be the fifth week out of the last seven that country artists have held the top spot.

That’s a distinct possibility. Early projections suggest the album should sell around 250,000 copies its first week.

A No. 1 entry for the Texas traditionalist would come on the boot heels of last week’s No. 1 chart entry by Rascal Flatts and earlier top-selling country collections from Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney.

But Strait has competition from Usher, whose “Confessions” album is the year’s runaway bestseller, having sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. since it was released in March.

An expanded version of “Confessions” with four new tracks, including his hit duet with Alicia Keys, “My Boo,” also landed in stores last week and likewise is expected to post first-week sales in the vicinity of 250,000. If Usher trumps Strait, it would be just the fourth time an R&B; or hip-hop artist has been No. 1 since the Fourth of July.

Looking over the whole year, however, Usher has outsold and out-charted all others, having spent eight weeks at No. 1 so far in another year dominated overall by R&B; and hip-hop music.

R&B; and hip-hop albums have held the No. 1 slot 18 times this year, compared with 10 for pop, five for country (six if we include Jimmy Buffett’s country-laced “License to Chill” album) and just twice for rock acts (Green Day and Velvet Revolver).

“It’s a cyclical thing,” says Billboard charts editor Geoff Mayfield, noting that record companies’ constantly shifting release schedules can produce atypical trends.

Rapper Eminem’s new “Encore” album, for instance, was at one time slated for summer release and presumably would have trounced all competition. It has since been scheduled to reach stores Nov. 16.

Beyond coincidental fluctuations, the recent skew at the top of the album chart may indicate that hip-hop has grown as a genre to the point where it has become more vulnerable to the sales patterns that govern pop, rock and country.

-- Randy Lewis