Jason Aldean is only platinum-selling country artist of 2014

Jason Aldean has made history by becoming the only country star to sell more than one million albums in 2014. The Burnin’ It Down hitmaker joins only two other artists – country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande – who have released a platinum-selling album in the U.S. this year (14).
His latest record, Old Boots, New Dirt, debuted at the top of Billboard’s Top 200 chart in October (14), and Aldean couldn’t be more pleased with his latest achievement.
He says in a statement which reads: “We put so much time and passion into choosing the best songs for this album, and this brings a lot of hard work full circle for me. It’s like Christmas came early! I couldn’t do it without the best country music fans in the world, who never stop believing in what I do and always follow me, even if I may take a creative left turn every now and then.”
With Aldean’s record sales increasing, fans haven’t been able to listen to the album online – he pulled Old Boots, New Dirt from music streaming programme Spotify in November (14), following in the footsteps of Swift who decided to remove her entire back catalogue from the popular app.
Despite the fact Aldean set a record for the best-ever debut for a country album on Spotify, with more than three million users streaming the album during its first week of release, he explained his decision to pull the record was to fairly compensate everyone who worked on the album.
With a few weeks left in 2014, British pop star Sam Smith is expected to join the trio of platinum-selling artists, thanks to his hit debut album, In the Lonely Hour.