The Eagles have soared to the top of the album charts, flying far higher than Britney Spears' new album.

The classic rock group's No. 1 debut on the Billboard Top 200 chart came about with a change in the publication's policy.

Spears' album "Blackout" would have been No. 1 with sales of 290,000 copies, but the Eagles massively outsold her, with sales of 711,000 copies of their "Long Road Out Of Eden" album.

The policy change comes because the Eagles' album was only sold through Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores.

Billboard never used to count albums that were sold exclusively through one retailer, but it has decided to change that because Wal-Mart was willing to share its sales data with Nielsen Soundscan.

Nielsen Soundscan counts music sales and Billboard uses those figures to determine the chart rankings.

The Eagles' "Long Road Out of Eden" features four of the group's longtime members: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt.

The group will make its first-ever appearance at the Country Music Association's awards show Wednesday night.