And George goes straight to the top...

...yet again, as the new album sells more than 155,000 copies in its first week in the stores. Couple of interesting bits of trivia in that Billboard article, or at least things I personally did not know: 50 Number Ones and Troubadour also topped the big chart, and -- here was something REALLY surprising -- the last time a Strait recording sold less than 100,000 copies its first week was 1994, when Lead On made its initial appearance with 56,000. In other words, Strait's fortunes in the record stores only improved after he released that four-cd career retrospective Strait Out of the Box in 1995. I remember when that set came out, I was just getting into George Strait about that time. I had always liked him, but right about that time was when I was getting to be much more of a fan, and I was thinking, ok, he releases this big box set full of his career records, done pretty much everything there is to do in country music, he's not about to ride off into the sunset, is he? With the life span of most careers of the older singers I honestly was thinking he was just about done, even though he was still doing well on the charts; after all, he seems like one who would go out on his own terms -- which from what I could tell would not be after he wore out his welcome on the radio. Pretty amazing that his best was yet to come, both artistically and commercially. Who knows. I might well get to see 15 more live Strait shows before he rides away. ;-)