Skip to Content

Scotty McCreery is growing accustomed to finishing in first place.

The talented young country crooner did so on American Idol in May, of course, and now he’s done so again on the Billboard Top 200. McCreery’s debut album, “Clear as Day,” sold 197,000 copies in its first week out, according to Nielsen SoundScan, placing it atop that chart.

The Hollywood Gossip Logo

“My head is just spinning,” Scotty says. “It started out kind of low: They said 100,000 maybe. Then every day I saw the numbers climbing. It’s wild: It wasn’t a year ago that I was a normal cat, and now I’m number one on Billboard. It’s insane, it really is.”

McCreery is the first Idol champion to hit number-one with his initial release since Ruben Studdard in 2003.

Lauren Alaina, meanwhile, released her first effort this week and will try to match Scotty’s total.