Speak Now Could Result in Sales of a Million PIeces

And a 20-year-old came to save them.

Country crossover star Taylor Swift won't be of drinking age until Dec. 13, but she's already celebrating, as Christmas comes early for the record industry.

The voice of a teen generation released her third album this week, Speak Now, on Scott Borchetta's Nashville-based Big Machine label along with Universal Republic, which has the industry partying like it's 1999, and we don't mean the sale price for a deluxe double album.

Between physical sales and a record-setting pace for digital downloads, the album forecast is between 900k and the magic million mark. The race to that milestone, the first album to do so since Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III in 2008, will provide a measure of suspense to next week's HITS sales chart, based on the response from those music retailers who haven't turned their storefronts into local Tea Party headquarters.

It would also be the largest first week for a Country artist since Shania Twain's Up sold 874k in Nov. 2002, and the first Country artist to go over a million since Garth Brooks' Double Live moved 1.085m in the good old days of Nov. 1998.

Swift's Speak Now is also approaching the year's top digital sales week, held by Eminem's Recovery, behind only Coldplay's Viva La Vida. The album immediately becomes a contender to topple the hip-hop-star's release for the year's best seller, which is now at 2.86m and counting.

The week's only other notable release is Warner Bros. deluxe Michael Buble album, Crazy Love (Hollywood the Deluxe EP), which is on target for between 20-25k in first-week sales.

The market was up 3% vs. last week, down 10% vs. same week last year and now down 13% year to date. You may now check your clothing for bed bugs. And oh, yeah, for everyone in California... Vote yes on Proposition 19 in favor of legal marijuana.

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