Jason Aldean’s ‘Take a Little Ride’ Tops Country Charts

Jason Aldean has the fastest-moving No. 1 country single of 2012, as "Take a Little Ride" tops both the Billboard and Mediabase/Country Aircheck charts this week. The first single from Jason's upcoming album, Night Train, had also topped the Billboard survey last week and was the No. 2 entry behind Hunter Hayes' "Wanted," on the Mediabase list, where "Wanted" drops this week to No. 5.

Inching one spot closer to the top on both charts is Jason's Broken Bow labelmate Dustin Lynch, whose "Cowboys and Angels" is No. 2. Jana Kramer's "Why Ya Wanna" and Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" are No. 3 and 4, respectively, on both charts. Meanwhile, Luke Bryan has another Billboard Top 10 hit as "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" moves up to No. 10. Jake Owen also hits the Top 10 with "The One That Got Away" up from 11 to 8 this week.

With the single topping both charts this week, all eyes are now on Night Train as the album nears its Oct. 16 release date. It also remains to be seen what effect, if any, the revelation that he (in his own words) "acted inappropriately" with a former "American Idol" contestant in a Los Angeles bar recently will have on his record sales and radio airplay. For his part, while recording the follow-up to the multi-platinum My Kinda Party, Jason set out to make the best record he could without trying to predict the outcome.

"I wasn't in there everyday going, 'Man, we've got to beat this record!'" he notes. "My Kinda Party did what it did just by us going in and being ourselves and recording music the way we record it. To me, it's [about the] songs. It's cliché to say, but that's what it boils down to and I feel like as long as you have great songs, everything else is going to take care of itself."

Jason is also in the running for three CMA awards, including Entertainer of the Year. The CMA Awards telecast airs Nov. 1 on ABC at 8:00 PM ET.