Thread: Carrie Underwood goes double platinum

12/14/07

Underwood Earns Multiple Year-End Accolades and Is the Billboard 200 Top-Selling Female Artist of 2007 Carrie's 6x-Platinum Debut, Some Hearts, Makes History as Billboard's Top Country Album for the Second Year

Nashville, TN - She is the preeminent female country artist of the past two years, and now, reigning ACM Top Female Vocalist, double GRAMMY winner, and back-to-back CMA Female Vocalist of the Year Carrie Underwood sees her 19 Recordings/Arista Records/Arista Nashville album, Carnival Ride, simultaneously RIAA-certified Gold, Platinum, and Double Platinum for sales of two million units.

Released on October 23, Carnival Ride has already launched the multi-week #1 smash, "So Small," Underwood's fifth consecutive country chart-topper after four #1 singles from her 6x-Platinum debut blockbuster, Some Hearts. Carrie's continued success is celebrated in the year-end issue of Billboard, where she is #1 across multiple categories including Top Country Artist and Top Country Artist - Female (both based on sales and airplay), and #1 among Top Country Album Artists (based on sales). Outside the country categories, Carrie's phenomenal 2007 is clear to see in the all-genre Billboard 200 Artist Recap, which ranks the pride of Checotah, Oklahoma, as the #1 best-selling female artist of the 2007 chart year.

Billboard also shows Carrie's juggernaut Some Hearts as the Top Country Album for the second consecutive year, making Carrie the first female artist in Billboard history to earn back-to-back honors for Top Country Album. Only one other artist - Charlie Rich, in '73 and '74, with his landmark Behind Closed Doors - has ever accomplished this feat.

Based on cumulative SoundScan sales now in excess of 6.1 million copies, Some Hearts this year became the best-selling female country debut in history. No album - in any genre - to release since Some Hearts (on November 15, 2005) has surpassed the disc's powerhouse sales to date.

On the airplay front, the 2007 Year in Music recap from R&R reflects the strength of Carrie's support at country radio, where she is the year's #1 female artist.

Carrie also scored outside of country radio, where "Before He Cheats" (a five-week #1 country single) recently spent a mammoth 64 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, earning the longest chart run of any Hot 100 single this decade.

Fans can soon be listening for her new single, "All-American Girl," as well as toasting New Year's Eve with Carrie when she performs live in New York City's Times Square on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2008 on ABC.

Carrie Underwood - News Story