NASHVILLE, TN  [Monday Dec.18.2006]  /Mix103FM.com/ -- Rascal Flatts will end the year as the best selling artist across all genres of music. This is the second consecutive year that the band will wrap the year as the best selling country artist, but the first time in fourteen years that a country artist has ended the year with the best selling artist album.

Not since Billy Ray Cyrus in 1992 has a country artist finished the year with the best selling artist album across all genres of music.

In the same year that Rascal Flatts' Me And My Gang takes top honors for the best selling artist album of 2006, it also holds the distinction of having the biggest unit debut of the year, with more than 721,000 units sold when it released in April.

Rascal Flatts surpass the second highest unit debut, Justin Timberlake, by more than 37,000 units. Me And My Gang held the #1 position on SoundScan's weekly Top 200 sales chart for three weeks, more consecutive weeks than any artist in any genre this year.

ALSO... Me And My Gang is the only artist album released in 2006 to be certified triple platinum by the RIAA for sales of more than 3 million units. The project has delivered two chart topping singles, including the band's first crossover hit, the multi-week AC #1 "What Hurts The Most," and the band's sixth country #1 single, "My Wish."

Rascal Flatts became one of only three country artists in the 45 years of shared Country and AC radio chart history to land two different songs in the #1 position on two different genre's radio charts in the same week, when
"What Hurts The Most" topped the R&R AC chart in the same week that "My Wish" went to #1 on the Mediabase Country chart.

In 2006, Rascal Flatts was awarded the CMA and ACM Country Group of the Year trophies for the fourth consecutive year. Gary, Jay and Joe Don also took home their very first, and second, American Music Award trophies, winning the Country Group/Duo award and the only fan-voted award of the night, the multi-genre Artist of the Year award.

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