Fun Hot

Lady Antebellum's second album, "Need You Now," crashes in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 481,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's the biggest debut sales week for any album since Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream" bowed atop the list with 701,000 in November, and the best for a country album since Taylor Swift's "Fearless" opened at No. 1 on the Billboard with 592,000 copies in Nov. 2008.Lady Antebellum's self-titled first album debuted and peaked at No. 4 with 43,000 in its opening week back in May of 2008. This week, in the set's 94th week on the chart, it climbs one spot to No. 15 with 31,000 (up 32%).
The eye-popping sum racked by Lady A's "Need You Now" is also the biggest opening week for an album released in January since the Game's "The Documentary" bowed with 587,000 at No. 1 in 2005. Traditionally, January isn't packed with albums that earn blockbuster debut weeks, as most of the big guns come out in time for the busy November-December holiday shopping season. But for the Capitol Nashville set, all the stars have seemingly aligned.