The Tennessean (Dec. 4th 2016)

Blake Shelton is a guy with a girl — and a hit album

Experience has taught Blake Shelton that country music careers “live and die by our most recent success.” 

Approaching the end of 2016, Shelton’s “If I’m Honest” is the top selling country album released in 2016. The album was certified gold — 500,000 copies sold — in August.

“It feels good to know that the fans are still there,” said Shelton who recently won Favorite Country Male Artist at the American Music Awards. “And luckily for me, my audience still likes to buy albums.”

Leading up to the album’s spring release, Shelton wasn’t so sure. He said he started calling executives at his label Warner Music Nashville weeks before “If I’m Honest” was released for sales predictions. Executive Vice President and General Manager Peter Strickland told him 100,000 copies in the first week, “was good for this day in age.”

“I’d already decided, if we can do that I’m throwing a party,” said the singer, who went on to sell more than 150,000 copies of his album the first week it was in stores. When “If I’m Honest” came out, sales predictions pointed to 120,000 and Shelton said they “just kept going up from there.” 

As the year winds down, Shelton’s album has still sold more copies its first week in stores than any other country album released this year.

“I had it in my mind that because of the way the industry is changing and everybody is streaming now, the days of getting those kinds of numbers are over,” Shelton said. “And I don’t want to down play it because … everybody at my record label and management has worked so hard for this because they knew how important this album was to me personally.”

Shelton, a coach on NBC’s “The Voice,” will perform his current single “A Guy with a Girl” on the show Tuesday — the song’s television debut. He described the album’s first two singles “Came Here to Forget” and “She’s Got a Way with Words” as “kind of dark” in different ways. He says “A Guy with a Girl” lightens the mood.

“If people haven’t heard the album, they may think it’s full of a lot of darkness and heartbreak and it’s really not,” Shelton said. “There’s only about four of those types of songs on the album and the rest of it is pretty fun.”

“The Voice” airs 7 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays on NBC.