Idol Billboard Update for Issue 11/29/08
First, I want to mention that we got some pretty sweet shout outs this week, from USA Today’s Idol Chatter, Reality Blurred and the Los Angeles Times. Pretty cool!
The post they linked to, my write-up on David Archuleta’s first week numbers for his debut album, would not have caught their attention, but for the cool charts I was able to incorporate into my report, compiled by our awesome numbers queen, Kirsten.
She presides over the very popular weekly mediabase and sales news posts, and hangs out in the comments threads, answering posters’ questions. She’s the expert on all things charts and numbers, and I’m wicked lucky to have her lending a hand here.
This week’s Idol Billboard chart–Some highlights:
- The big news, of course, was David Archuleta’s debut album, David Archuleta
entering the Billboard 200 at #2. It entered the Top Digital Albums chart at #2 and the Top Internet Albums at #3 The album sold 183K copies. A most excellent start for young David.
-  And of course, the single “Crush” keeps chugging along, with a 24% increase this week, selling 72K copies, for a total of 991K–it’s very close to platinum. It climbed, mostly, on the Billboard Charts: Hot 100, from 22-21, Hot 100 Airplay, from 12-15, Pop 100 – 17-16, Pop 100 Airplay – fell 18-16, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks – climbed 12-11, Mainstream Top 40 – fell 15-18, Hot Adult Top 40, climbed 18-17, Hot Digital Tracks, 18-13, Hot Digital Songs, 19-14.
- Three additional songs from David Archuleta charted on digital songs this week (though not high enough to make the Billboard Hot Digital Songs Chart) “A Little To Not Over You” at #79, “Touch My Hand” at # 134 and “Angels” at #185. The highest charting of the four, “A Little To Not Over You”, entered the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles Chart at #14. “Bubbling Under” charts songs that are on the verge of entering the Hot 100. No wonder Jive switched the next single from “Touch My Hand” to “A Little To Not Over You”. The people have spoken!
- David Cook hit a milestone this week. “Time of My Life”, the little coronation that could, has sold platinum! It had a 14% increase this week, selling 11K, putting TOML at the 1M mark. Magic rainbows for everyone! “Time of My Life” remains at #1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart.
- David Cook’s other song, his current single, “Light On” had a 17% increase, selling 21K for a total of 247K. Well, It’s mostly moving up the charts this week, Hot 100 – 89-82, Pop 100 55-52, Pop 100 Airplay – 51-51, Mainstream Top 40 – 40-34, Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks – 20-18, Hot Digital Tracks, falls 67-71. Time for a new single?
- Mandisa’s “It’s Christmas” enters the Top Christian Albums chart at #37, and climbs the Top Christian and Gospel Albums chart, 64-48.
- Jennifer Hudson’s “If This Isn’t Love” enters the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at #92. “Spotlight” remains at #1 on the Hot Adult R&B Airplay chart.
- Kellie Pickler co-wrote “The Best Days of Your Life” with country IT girl, Taylor Swift. It enters the Hot Country Songs chart at #56.
- Bucky Covington’s “I’ll Walk” climbs 11-10 on the Hot Country Songs chart, giving Bucky a Top 10 country hit.
- Carrie Underwood’s “Just a Dream” got a lift from her sensational performance at the CMA’s last week: Hot 100 – 43-29, Hot 100 Airplay, 32-34, Hot Country Songs, 4-7 (guess it’s peaked on the country radio…), It re-enters the Hot Digital Tracks chart at #29, and climbs from 61-30 on the Hot Digital Songs chart. It had a whopping 100% sales increase, selling 39K for a total of 385K.
Posted in Uncategorized
66 Responses to “Idol Billboard Update for Issue 11/29/08”
The closest that anyone has come to that, noctem, was the Ann Powers article from the LA Times. And that was really not so much a review, as a profile, even though it did discuss DCTR.
Interesting points, Jlyn.
And if you want to make a really interesting logic leap, I think this ties into the whole “cougar” attraction. The cougar-phenomenon associated with Cook is quite overblown, but to the extent it does exist, I think it probably goes beyond what is normally associated with cougars– mere attraction to younger males. If you think about it, today’s cougar-age or near-cougar-age women were in college, or at least in their in their twenties, in the nineties– the heyday for alternative music. So, I think this partially may explain why Cook may have had an even stronger appeal to this age-set than the average guy on TV who they find visually appealing.
Noctem- no one may read this comment, but I just saw you comment about DA and the LDS publication. I am aware that this publication is not put out by the LDS church. I take that article with a huge grain of salt. I think it is a bit like many publications that are trying to be sensational to get people’s attention. I have heard David many times in interviews say sincerely (I believe that is the only way David knows how to be) that he is very happy with his direction for now and that he wanted an eclectic album. The only thing I have heard his dad say on a fansofdavid chat is that they had tried to negotiate to have more of the songs David had written on the main album. He said they both compromised. They got some things and didn’t get others. I expect it works that way with most new artists, but I gather that they have been very happy overall.
If I had my choice, most of his bonus songs would be on the main album, but there is only about one new song, plus angels that I would be willing to give up. Angels is great, but since we have heard him sing it many, many times and his fans already bought it, I would be willing to give that up.
I think you have a real point noctem, especially since I would fall into your category. (I have 10 years on Cook, so I don’t know if I would qualify for cougar yet.) But as a college and grad student of the 90’s his music is very attractive to me. If you want to make another logic leap, I think that this is helping to spur album sales for him. We of the CD generation are used to listening to, and enjoying whole albums, and actually, you know, quaintly bothering to purchase it. We know have enough money to buy ipods but we still have those old bad habits. It’s not a bad fanbase to have.
As someone who is also 10 years older than DC, I affirmatively vote that you are not of the age to be a cougar, Jlyn.
You know what I find really funny? It’s not just Cook’s music that is last-decade-revivalist. I haven’t bought a CD in a while before this one, but do artists today still widely put hidden tracks on their albums? When I first streamed the record and observed the gap after ADA ends, I was like, “Did he put a secret song on here? That’s right out of the nineties!” Because it seemed like EVERY alt-rock band used to include a hidden song on their record in the nineties…
Completely agree that it is wrong to compare David Cook to Daughtry, except that I do think if you want to classify Cook in relation to grunge in anyway, it would have to be post-grunge. It just a different grunge lineage to Nickelback/Daughtry, although so many people are called post-grunge that I’m not sure if the term has gotten too fuzzy to be useful.
To me though David Cook’s album has too much of the 70s and 80s feel to it to be fully post-grunge. I’m sure it is no accident that he chose to sing Fleetwood Mac’s Little Lies on his CD debut concert, as if he wanted to remind people of the many musical influences from that era in his CD.
Jlyn, folkfan, and noctem, to resurrect another ’90s reference, you are so money. A lot of Cook’s appeal is that he is in so many ways a throwback to the previous decade. I’m 5 years older than him – I hope that doesn’t make me a cougar! – but listening to his music brings back fond memories of listening to the radio in college and discovering artists I liked enough to take a chance on their albums. And the fact that he seems to have come of age, musically, during that same period, just strengthens that feeling of kinship. Right down to his love for Sarah McLachlan .
I’ve actually seen some reviews of DC’s album that do discuss this streak of ’90s alt-rock nostalgia, though they haven’t tended to cast it in a particularly favorable light. (Exhibit A: Jon Caraminica’s NYT review.) But they do seem to recognize its power, however grudgingly. And yes, Ann Powers does, too – not grudgingly.
I’m not sure if I was misunderstood or the conversation just generally moved into another direction. I was explaining why there has been suggestions that LO be ditched for another single. Personally, though, I think it’s too late for that. If they were going to do it, they should have done it 2-3 weeks ago.
I understand LO was picking up a little before the weekend. I don’t look at the quick cut data because a lot of those spins simply don’t count–they’re unmonitored spins. If you look at mediabase, I believe it had a few days last week with plus-20s and plus-teens. One day with a plus-30. Then on Sunday it had a plus-60 or so, accounting for some AT40 spins, and today a plus-120 or so (can’t exactly recall), accounting for more AT40 spins and Rick Dees spins. And that’s great, but it doesn’t mean it’ll keep going like that. Crush had weekday spin increases over 100 for a whole week before *bam* it started to slow down and then stalled. It sustained in the lower teens for a long time before starting to fall. You just don’t know, and RCA can’t control everything. So I’m hard-pressed to look back and LO’s trajectory and say that RCA “knew it all along.” I’m pretty sure that, if RCA had a choice, they would want LO higher on Top 40–maybe in the lower-20s by now. With the radio freeze coming up (radio slows down in December), LO could have sustained in the freeze at a higher level. And I’m sure that RCA would want LO to have more of a positive effect on album sales when people are out shopping rather than in January when people stop buying. If Cook doesn’t have massive promotion after this week and if all of his current fans have purchased the album, what is going to sell his record? Not luck–he needs something to keep his music out there. His single is it, and it’s not where it probably should be at this point in time. But, again, I think it’s too late and RCA needs to see it through. RCA could get lucky and LO could sneak in while other songs are more affected by the freeze.
As for Katy Perry not selling a lot of albums–her first single “I Kissed A Girl” is a classic novelty single. Yes, “Hot N Cold” is #1 on CHR now, but she’ll be known for IKAG. If she doesn’t have another hit after “Hot N Cold,” chances are “Hot N Cold” will be mostly forgotten, and IKAG will be her legacy. That’s the problem with novelty singles. Katy’s a singles artist, like Rihanna was before they re-released her album with more songs, released 7 singles and pushed the heck out of her album. There are some artists that, no matter how well their single does, they don’t sell albums.
But there are singles that very much do sell albums. “No Air” was the single that pushed Jordin close to platinum. Without that single she wouldn’t be anywhere near platinum. “U Ur Hand” sold most of P!nk’s last album. It was sluggishly moving along until that song. Cook should be able to sell his albums off the back of his singles. He’s a debut artist, so it’s not like, after the first week, he’s can sell his albums off the back of anything else. He’s not AC/DC or The Eagles. He can’t sell on his name alone.
And would you have buy that… it seems like somehow David Archuleta can win with the critics, not you, if he would have made and older more mature sounding album, a la Jason Mraz or Jhon Myer, he would have being attacked with comments like “he doesn ´t have the life experience to sing those songs”, or “he is being boring”…
DA told since the beggining that giving the ammount of time he had to work in his album this one will have to be more in to the pop vibe… right now for me this album will give DA the way to made a trasition from AI to the commercial public… latter he can made the decision about what kind of artist he wants to be…
About Jeff and David not being happy with the album, I think you migh have miss this post:
The article in the LSD publication, as LK08 said, was made by a persone that “used” to work with David, they don ´t have the imput in the state or mind and opinion from both David and Jeff about the album and Jive, and to me those kind of articles are more like a desperete try to get in to the attention that David is receiving right now… and those people should stop doing that kind of things…
PS.
If you haven ´t heard that bonus track that MJ posted in that other thread, I recomend you do, it migh give you an idea of the artist that David migh grow up to be…
A million more audience impressions is a million more audience impressions. The fact that a market does not count for purposes of the Top 40 chart does not mean that people in that market cannot hear the song and buy the record. The simple fact is that, even setting aside the Top 40 countdown, LO has been growing well in the last several days—not soaring like a rocket, but steadily growing after it sort of plateaued for a few days a couple weeks ago. From the perspective of a DC fan, here’s hoping that it keeps growing.
You know, it’s interesting that you brought up Pink. Man, that So What single has been huge. And,in three weeks, it has fueled her to just over 300,000 in record sales. In this market, not bad, but that certainly doesn’t seem to say, hey, hit single even by established star = huge record sales.
Otherwise, yes, it does kind of look like the conversation wandered away from you, soundscene. [smile]
Cruz- I agree about David and remember that he has also said many times that he wants to do younger things since he is young- things that appeal to kids his age. He already had the older audience. AI isn’t known for having a huge young audence because of the old stuff they do. He is now gaining those young fans as well.
One of the beauties of Cook — and there are MANY in my view, pun intended — is that depending on who you are (and sometimes how old your musical experience may be, ahem
) you hear vintage “your era” in his songs. In this thread alone, we’ve heard the 90s, 80s, 70s. And, since I was a musical prodigy (hahahahaha) where some hear 90s grunge, I may hear more Eagles, Journey, and maybe even, say, Queen (in Bar-ba-sol, in particular!) That’s why his target demographic can be so broad. And, that’s why I completely agree that the “cougar” effect (in some instances) means musical interest, not sexual conquest. So, the Cookie’s all good and all’s good for the Cookie! Nom, nom, nom… :lol_wp:
Right, yes, I know–but I wanted to respond to comments made when I wasn’t online. [smile back]
Yes, more audience impressions matter, whether they’re monitored or not. But all artists have unmonitored spins. The monitored spins generally follow the same path, so you can gauge the relative impact an artist is making by his monitored play (unless the artist is very indie or small and is only getting played on unmonitored stations).
Not all of P!nk’s singles wind up selling her album, but the right one will. Again, that was the point I was making. “So What” was huge, but I would guess that it’ll be “Sober” or maybe the third single that will really sell her album. It’s got to be the right song. But I’m pretty sure P!nk wouldn’t have sold as many albums as she has if “So What” had not been as successful as it was when her album dropped. My point was always that more airplay for LO at this point would have sold more albums.
Of course, following that same logic, maybe LO is not “the right song” to “really sell” DCTR, but the second or third single will be. My guess is that the good start plus TV appearances plus soundcheck/AOL sessions plus LO performance on the radio will build up enough momentum to get DCTR to strong, if not eyepopping, numbers by the end of the year. Then, as you’re suggesting will happen with Pink, a subsequent single could blow the record sales open.
ETA: Comment thingy does not like plus signs. Who knew?
lol… DCTR. Nice nickname.