Sales & Chart Placement for Tyler Childers Album “Long Violent History”
The latest Tyler Childers album Long Violent History is not exactly a conventional studio album since it was a surprise release, and only contains one original song along with eight traditional fiddle tunes. But with the way Childers and specifically his 2017 record Purgatory have been such a perennial chart performer in country for the majority of 2020—commonly hovering somewhere between #12 and #18, and ahead of many newer mainstream releases—it’s worth checking out how Long Violent History fared in its first full week of sales.
Long Violent History debuted this week at #6 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, with total equivalent sales of 13,136 albums. 8,843 of those units were pure sales and downloads, and the rest were streaming equivalents drawn from just over 5 millions plays of the album’s songs over the week. Those numbers were also good enough for #1 on the Billboard Folk/Americana chart, and #45 on the all-genre Billboard 200. Keith Urban landed the #1 album in country this week with his new record The Speed of Now Part #1.
Again, Long Violent History is not a normal release. But if you want to compare these numbers to the debut of Tyler’s last album Country Squire, he sold 32,212 total units of the 2019 release, with 23,962 records in pure album sales and downloads, and 9,938,075 song streams the first week. Country Squire became Tyler’s first #1 album in country.
Meanwhile as mentioned before, 2017’s Purgatory continues to be Tyler’s biggest bread winner. This week the title jumped from #14 to #12 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, thanks in part to strong streaming activity. Streams went from 8.2 million the previous week, to 9.3 million this week. That also means fans streamed Purgatory almost twice as much as Long Violent History on the week the surprise album debuted. Tyler’s Country Squire also charted at #55 in country on the week, with 3,869 in total equivalent sales, and 3.5 million streams, up from #79 on the country charts the previous week.
Long Violent History was recorded with “The Pickin Crew,” which included Tyler’s fiddle player and traditional music instructor Jesse Wells, along with Dom Flemons, 5-string Kentucky banjo specialist John Haywood, mandolinist Andrew Marlin, guitarist Josh Oliver, upright bassist (and solo performer/songwriter) John R. Miller, fiddler Chloe Edmonstone, and cellist Cecelia Wright. It was the result of Childers learning traditional fiddle tunes over the last year, culminating in his message on the recent upheaval involving race in America.
100% of the net proceeds from Long Violent History are going to the Hickman Holler Appalachian Relief Fund to support underserved communities throughout the Appalachia region. Fans can donate to the fund or purchase Long Violent History merch bundles by CLICKING HERE.
October 3, 2020 @ 9:41 am
Thanks for the update. I didn’t realize John R. Miller was in it. Pretty cool. His solo albums are awesome.
October 3, 2020 @ 10:07 am
Expect some big news coming from the John R. Miller camp in the future, maybe near this end of this year, or early next…
October 3, 2020 @ 7:58 pm
Trigger, this news of upcoming news made my night. JR Miller has been one of my most listened to artists since his last album came out. Can’t wait for some new stuff from him.
October 4, 2020 @ 11:28 am
Can’t wait for more JR Miller! Big fan of his music and songwriting!
October 4, 2020 @ 4:08 pm
Thanks! Looking forward to it.
October 3, 2020 @ 9:54 am
Plus, the title track charter at #48 on Hot Country Songs. First non-single of his to do so.
October 3, 2020 @ 10:05 am
Good for him (and everyone who plays old-time music). I saw his explainer video shared all over Reddit (not just country music subs) and many of the comments started off with “i’ve never heard of this guy but I’m going off to listen to him now”. Hopefully some of that attention winds up introducing people to country genres they didn’t know about.
October 3, 2020 @ 10:07 am
Also, hooray for an independent release doing all this. It’s really an interesting time to be watching independent country.
October 3, 2020 @ 2:43 pm
I ordered the vinyl and didn’t notice at the time but will not get it shipped until January. Seems odd that they didn’t have it pressed already. I wonder if record orders that haven’t shipped counted?
October 3, 2020 @ 6:04 pm
This story confuses me because it has both Childers and Urban in it and I always get them confused.
October 8, 2020 @ 8:03 pm
I am not a supporter of the police or blm but I love old time music. And I appreciate what he did here. I watched the video and not being a supporter of certain causes aside… Tyler is right. There is no argument to what he said.