Underwood, Pickler and Clarkson Nominated for CMA Awards

Three American Idol alum made the cut this morning when the nominations for the 43rd Annual CMA Awards were announced.

Carrie Underwood picked up a nomination for Best Female Vocalist, where she'll compete with Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Taylor Swift and LeAnn Rimes.

Kellie Pickler, meanwhile, was nominated for Best New Female Vocalist alongside Taylor Swift and Sarah Buxton.

Finally, Kelly Clarkson grabbed a nod for Vocal Event of the Year for her duet of "Because of You" with Reba McEntire. Their competition includes Tracy Lawrence With Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, Kenny Chesney With George Strait, Bon Jovi Featuring LeAnn Rimes, and Vince Gill With Sheryl Crow.

For a full list of CMA nominations, click here.

Reba Tops the Album Chart, Daughtry Slips and Underwood Drops Out of Top 50

Believe it or not, this week's Top 50 album chart will be the first one not to feature Carrie Underwood's Some Hearts since 2005! Don't worry for Carrie, though -- her new album comes out in four weeks, so she'll be dominating again before too long.

Dominating this week, however, is Reba McEntire, who got an assist from Kelly Clarkson on her albums Duets. Clarkson and McEntire of course recorded a new version of Clarkson's "Because of You," which served as the first single. Duets sold approximately 300K copies, which is the biggest first week total of Reba's career.

The only Idol alum with an album on the charts, then, is Daughtry, whose self-titled debut fell eight spots to #31 this week (21K copies).

Aside from Reba, the rest of the Top 5 consisted of Kanye West (200K), 50 Cent (128K), Barry Manilow (112K) and Kenny Chesney (110K).

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Kelly Clarkson Grabs First #1 Country Single With Reba McEntire

Her album may not be selling as well as she'd like, but Kelly Clarkson has just achieved a new accomplishment -- according to Mediabase, she has her first #1 single on the country charts.

Kelly's duet with Reba McEntire on "Because of You" (a song Kelly took to #1 on her own two years ago) tops the Country chart this week. The song is the lead-off single to Reba's new Duets album, which also features collaborations with Justin Timberlake, LeeAn Rimes, Carol King, Trisha Yearwood, Rascall Flatts, Faith Hill and Kenny Chesney.

Clarkson, McEntire and Timberlake filmed an episode of Oprah this past week to promote the CD. That episode will air on September 19.

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