The country onslaught continues! Sugarland scores this week’s #1 album with their latest effort, “The Incredible Machine”. The duo’s sound, which mixes traditional country with a more streamlined, arena pop-rock sound, was enough to impress 203,000 folks. Not bad, huh?

The top four positions on this week’s Billboard chart are all new entries. Kings of Leon score the biggest debut in their history with “Come Around Sundown”. The band’s fifth effort scores a total of 184,000 units-more than double the biggest sales week the band has previously experienced. Artist development-it still happens.

Rock legends Elton John & Rod Stewart comprise the other two debuts. Elton’s collaboration album with Leon Russell, “The Union”, scans just under 80,000 copies to land at #3. It has an advantage of about 250 copies over Rod Stewart’s latest “American Songbook” effort at #4. For Elton, it’s his biggest sales week for a studio album since 1997.

Other new albums on the chart this week include Glee’s “Rocky Horror” album at #6 (look for an increase on that next week), Shakira’s new Spanish album at #7, inspirational act Third Day at #9, the latest “Hannah Montana” album at #11 (I guess that bubble’s burst, huh?), and remasters of the Beatles’ red and blue greatest hits collections at #32 and #29, respectively.

The onslaught of new albums results in an almost completely different Top 10 from last week, with the only holdovers being Lil Wayne, Eminem and Darius Rucker. Look for there to be a fair amount of bouncing around next week as well. Some of the new albums will contract, some of the older albums that fell out of the Top 10 will rebound, and Taylor Swift will crown the chart with 2010’s biggest first-week sales number so far. Low-end estimates have “Speak Now”‘s first week hovering around the 800K mark. Some are suggesting that the album could pass a million sold, making it the first album to cross that barrier since Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” 2 1/2 years ago.

September brought forward a slew of releases from big-name artists (many of whom were trying to get albums out in time for Grammy consideration). Not all of these efforts has proven to be particularly successful, though. One would think that nearly a decade between releases would build anticipation, but that doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to Phil Collins. “Going Back” tumbles to #184 in it’s fourth week of release. The album’s only sold 28,000 units so far. Similar tumbles are being experienced by the likes of Brandon Flowers (#158 after six weeks), Seal (#153 after four weeks), Ice Cube (#143 after four weeks) and David Archuleta, who tumbles to #125 in only his third week of release. What’s the over/under on Archie getting released from his contract? 2 months? 6 months?

Anyway, here’s this week’s Top 20 albums:

1) “The Incredible Machine” Sugarland
2) “Come Around Sundown” Kings of Leon
3) “The Union” Elton John & Leon Russell
4) “Fly Me to the Moon: The Great American Songbook Vol. 5” Rod Stewart
5) “I Am Not a Human Being” Lil Wayne
6) “Rocky Horror Glee Show” Glee Cast
7) “Sale el Sol” Shakira
8) “Recovery” Eminem
9) “Move” Third Day
10) “Charleston, SC 1966” Darius Rucker
11) “Hannah Montana Forever” Soundtrack
12) “The Bootleg Series Vol 9: Witmark Demos” Bob Dylan
13) “Hemingway’s Whiskey” Kenny Chesney
14) “You Get What You Give” Zac Brown Band
15) “The Band Perry” The Band Perry
16) “BTR” Big Time Rush
17) “Passion, Pain & Pleasure” Trey Songz
18) “A Year Without Rain” Selena Gomez & the Scene
19) “A Thousand Suns” Linkin Park
20) “Sigh No More” Mumford & Sons