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Scotty McCreery's debut album, Clear as Day, has been certified platinum for shipments of 1 million units. McCreery, who won American Idol in May, released the album in October on Mercury Nashville/19 Recordings/Interscope Records.

"It means the world to me," said McCreery. "It's one of the highest honors you can get with your album, and it's a huge testament to the loyalty of country music fans and how great they have been to me this year. 2011 was absolutely an incredible, life-changing year for me. I want to say a huge thanks to the fans for this."

The album's first single, "I Love You This Big," has also been certified gold for 500,000 digital downloads. His current single is "The Trouble With Girls."

McCreery will begin his tour with Brad Paisley and The Band Perry on Thursday (Jan. 12) in Grand Rapids, Mich.

"I'm looking forward to having a great time," McCreery added. "It's going to be a fun, jam-packed set. We are including a lot of the fun songs on the album, and both of the singles are in there. It will be a good chance to see the fans and just enjoy a good show with Brad Paisley and The Band Perry."

New Year, Old Story: Lady Antebellum, Zac Brown Band Still on Top of Country Charts
Conway Twitty, Little Big Town Score Top New Album and Song
December 31, 2011; Written by Edward Morris

Lady Antebellum
Although there are still a few hours of 2011 left on the calendar, the numbers cited in this week's chart column are from Billboard's Jan. 7, 2012 charts, a circumstance that suggests the trade publication has the power to hasten the earth's turnings. And who are we to argue?

Anyway, the No. 1 album and song for the first week of 2012 are the same as for the last week of 2011 -- Lady Antebellum's Own the Night and the Zac Brown Band's "Keep Me in Mind."

But a few changes occur farther down the charts.

There is one new album to report: Icon: Conway Twitty, which arrives at No. 67, and four re-entries: Icon: Johnny Cash (back at No. 58), Icon: Hank Williams (No. 62), the various artist package Country Strong: More Music From the Motion Picture (No. 71) and Sunny Sweeney's Concrete (No. 72).

Five new songs raise their timorous heads: Little Big Town's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (No. 49), Miranda Lambert's "Over You" (No. 53), Blake Shelton's "Drink on It" (No. 56), Justin Moore's "Run Rudolph Run" (No. 58) and Edens Edge's "O Holy Night."

(Note, please, that Lambert co-wrote "Over You" with Shelton, her royal consort. This should mitigate any sting he might feel from having entered the chart three places below his missus.)

The No. 2 through No. 5 albums are Scotty McCreery's Clear as Day, Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party, Toby Keith's Clancy's Tavern and Luke Bryan's Tailgates & Tanlines.

Trooping in behind "Keep Me in Mind" within the Top 5 songs are Aldean's "Tattoos on This Town," Rascal Flatts' "Easy" (featuring Natasha Bedingfield), David Nail's "Let It Rain" and Eric Church's "Drink in My Hand," in that order.

Let us end on this happy note: According to Nielsen SoundScan, the Top 75 country albums sold a total of 1,085,698 copies the final week of 2011, a jump of more than 300,000 copies over the week before.

Quick! Red Solo Cups for everybody!

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