Perspective will determine whether the opening week sales tally for Carrie Underwood’s “Something in the Water” registers as the best or second-best of her career.
No ambiguity exists, however, over the fact that it was her best total since 2009 and enough to score a #4 debut on the Billboard Digital Songs chart.
Per Billboard, the lead single from Underwood’s new “Something in the Water” drove 125,000 paid downloads in its first week of release. Only Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” (202,000), Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” (188,000) and One Direction’s “Steal My Girl” (186,000) performed better on the digital retail front last week.
The total is Underwood’s best since March 2009, when her “I Told You So” duet with Randy Travis moved 126,000 on the heels of a live “American Idol” performance.
Billboard calls the “Something in the Water” tally the best digital sales mark of her career, but one could certainly make the case that the “I Told You So” total should also count as a debut week performance.
While Underwood’s solo cover of the Randy Travis song was already in the market, the duet version debuted on iTunes in conjunction with the 2009 “American Idol” performance.
But regardless of where one falls on this particular semantics issue, he cannot deny that Underwood remains a reliable, commercial force in the world of country music.