Garth Brooks' Win-Win Week Of Album Sales Domination

Garth Brooks

GARTH BROOKS is a lot of things – singer, songwriter, COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAMER, reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year, and … boxing champ? Wait – boxing? Well, yeah. His latest release, the 10-CD “GARTH BROOKS: The Ultimate Collection” is BROOKS’ fourth career box set, and like the others, is a sales champion. BROOKS' 1998 set, “The Limited Series,” debuted atop the album sales chart. Ditto 2013’s “Blame It All On My Roots: Five Decades of Influences.” Now, in its first sales week ending THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17th, the TARGET-exclusive “The Ultimate Collection” sold 134,000 copies.

Included in “The Ultimate Collection” is BROOKS’ new studio effort, “Gunslinger,” set for its own, standalone release this FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25th. Unlike the latest box set, though, “Gunslinger” will be available via all physical retailers and through AMAZON as a digital and streaming album, thanks to BROOKS’ exclusive deal with AMAZON MUSIC, announced last month (NET NEWS 10/19).

In spite of the impressive 134,000 first-week figure, “The Ultimate Collection” didn’t appear in the usual places for recognition -- namely, The BILLBOARD 200 -- due to its price point. TARGET’s $29 fee fell below the minimum required price to chart, which is $3.49 for a single disc, or $3.49 times the amount of discs in the entire set. Still, that makes BROOKS a champion of another sort, too -- he’s always given his fans a legitimate chance to find his music, whether in a live setting, where his concert tickets are famously affordable, and once again with his recorded material. But BROOKS still had a #1 album debut to be proud of this week, as his holiday album, “CHRISTMAS Together,” recorded with wife TRISHA YEARWOOD, was the week's official #1 Country album (NET NEWS 11/21).

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