Rascal Flatts' New CD Me and My Gang the #1 Album in the Nation With 721,747 Units Scanned in the First Week

Rascal Flatts' New CD Me and My Gang the #1 Album in the Nation With 721,747 Units Scanned in the First Week

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Rascal Flatts' highly anticipated new CD Me And My Gang debuted in the #1 position on the Soundscan Top 200 albums chart, making it the highest selling CD across all genres, beating out new releases from Pink and the popular NOW compilation. As the highest selling title in the nation, Rascal Flatts' new CD also debuted at #1 on Soundscan's country album chart.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060412/CLW034 )

With 721,747 units sold in the first week of release, this places Rascal Flatts in an elite group of artists. Since the inception of Soundscan, only four other country artists (Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, Dixie Chicks and Tim McGraw) have scanned 700,000 units or more in their first week of release. In addition, across all genres only 24 acts have debuted at over 700,000 units in the first week of release. With the stellar debut of Rascal Flatts Me And My Gang, the group joins the ranks of Eminem, 50 Cent, U2 and Coldplay.

Included in the first week sales are 30,246 digital units of Me And My Gang, making it the #1 country digital album debut in Soundscan history. According to Nielsen, in one week the new Rascal Flatts album sold more units digitally than any other country album for the entire year of 2005. The highest selling digital album in 2005 was Rascal Flatts' Feels Like Today with 22,685 in sales.

In addition, Rascal Flatts holds the record for the most country digital tracks sold in a single week with 62,113 downloads of their hit "What Hurts The Most." The song is the first single from the new album and continues to sit atop the R&R and Billboard charts for four weeks and three weeks respectively.

The band's previous three albums, Feels Like Today, Melt and Rascal Flatts, have scanned nearly 9 million units combined. With nearly three quarters of a million units sold in the first week of release, this is the largest first week sales number in Lyric Street Records' history.

Lyric Street Records is a part of the Buena Vista Music Group. The Buena Vista Music Group is the recorded music and music publishing arm of the Walt Disney Company.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060412/CLW034
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Lyric Street Records

CONTACT: Cindy Heath of Lyric Street Records, +1-615-963-4865; or Jessie
Schmidt of Schmidt Relations, +1-615-846-3878

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