LOS ANGELES: Country singer Jason Aldean landed his second No. 1 record on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, leading a slew of new debuts.

Old Boots, New Dirt, the sixth album from Aldean, sold 278,000 copies in its first week, according to sales figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. It is the third-largest opening sales week this year, behind Coldplay's Ghost Stories and Eric Church's The Outsiders.

It was also streamed more than 3 million times in its first day on online streaming platform Spotify, the biggest first day for a country album, the service said.

Aldean's album sold more than four times more copies than Irish indie artist Hozier, who came in at No. 2 on the chart this week with his self-titled album selling 58,000 copies.

Last week's chart-topper, country singer Blake Shelton's "Bringing Back the Sunshine," dropped to No. 6 this week.

Other new debuts in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart, which measures physical and digital album sales, include alt-rockers Weezer at No. 5 with Everything Will Be Alright in the End.

Veteran singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks entered the chart at No. 7 with 24 Karat Gold - Songs from the Vault, a collection of her early recordings. X Factor pop couple Alex & Sierra came in at No. 8 with It's About Us, and R&B singer Keyshia Cole's Point of No Return debuted at No. 9.

For the week ending Oct. 12, total album sales clocked in at 4.47 million units, down 15 percent from the comparable week in 2013. Year-to-date sales figures stand at 883.54 million, down 13 percent from last year when sales topped the 1 billion mark in October, Billboard said.