Idol Sales News – Week Ending 05/29/11

UPDATE: Scotty’s “I Love You This Big” official radio add date was 5/31. “It seems like the biggest opportunity this format has ever had.” says UMG/Nashville Sr. VP/Promotion, Royce Risser, about Scotty. According to Risser, Scotty will begin his country radio tour while on the Idol tour beginning July 1.

The post Memorial Day Weekend sales are the always eagerly awaited by the Idol Number watchers. This is our early indications as to whether our newly minted Idols will be successful or not. Our first real chance to debate what the numbers mean. Our latest chance to compare this season to all other seasons.

Given that their label has already taken out an ad bragging about their success, it’s pretty clear Scotty and Lauren are off to a really good start. Scotty has already racked up a record breaking Country radio debut, the 3rd best selling iTunes single for the week, the 3rd best selling iTunes album for the week and 171, 404 in coronation single sales. He should achieve his first Billboard number 1 and have the record for the best selling debut week for a male country artist download track (recently set by Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” at 138K). Scotty’s single was added on 34 radio stations and HDD is predicting that he had the 11th best selling album of the week for his compilation of singles from the season (23, 785). Today, he reached Top 40 on the Mediabase Country chart. Not bad for a half a week’s worth of numbers.

Lauren is no slouch either. She is second on Taking Off Country radio chart, 8th on the iTunes track chart, 8th on the iTunes Album chart and sold 121K of her coronation single. That makes her single the 2nd best selling coronation single amongst runner-ups in 10 seasons and the best selling digital runner-up coronation single seller ever (first week numbers). Lauren has the best selling digital coronation single for a female. “Like My Mother Does” was added on 16 stations and HDD is predicting that Lauren’s compilation album of singles from the season will sell 11, 318.

Congratulations you two crazy kids.

Album Numbers from Idol Chatter:

Scotty McCreery, American Idol Season 10: Scotty McCreery (23, 196, debut, 23, 196) (#12 Billboard 200)
Lauren Alaina, American Idol Season 10: Lauren Alaina (10, 651 , debut, 10, 651 ) #41 BB200
Jennifer Hudson, I Remember Me (5, 000, -17%, 338, 000) (#84 BB200)
Carrie Underwood, Play On (3, 000, +42%, 2.004 million)
Mandisa, What If We Were Real (3, 000, -13%, 37, 000)
Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts (2, 000, +35%, 7.108 million)
Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride (2, 000, +56%, 3.197 million)

The Top 10

  1. Lady Gaga, Born This Way (1.108 million)
  2. Brad Paisley, This Is Country Music (153, 000)
  3. Adele, 21 (126, 000)
  4. Glee Cast, Glee: The Music, Vol. 6 (80, 000)
  5. Various, MMG Presents: Self Made, Vol. 1 (59, 000)
  6. Various, Now That’s What I Call Music! 38 (45, 000)
  7. NKOTBSB, NKOTBSB (40, 000)
  8. Foster the People, Torches (33, 000)
  9. Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party (33, 000)
  10. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More (25, 000)

Scotty McCreery – “I Love You This Big” 171, 404 – #3 Hot Digital Songs, #1 Country Digital Songs, 11 Hot 100
Lauren Alaina – Like My Mother Does: 121, 000 – #11 Hot Digital Songs, #2 Country Digital Songs, 20 Hot 100
Jason Aldean/Kelly Clarkson, Don’t You Wanna Stay (25, 000, -2%, 1.286 million)
Carrie Underwood, Undo It (15, 000, +212%, 1.106 million)
Carrie Underwood, Before He Cheats (10, 000, +156%, 3.23 million)
Carrie Underwood, Flat on the Floor (10, 000, +634%, 116, 000)
Carrie Underwood, Jesus, Take the Wheel (8, 000, +185%, 1.836 million)
Kellie Pickler, Best Days of Your Life (6, 000, +355%, 1.127 million)
Mandisa, Stronger (5, 000, -2%, 46, 000)
Carrie Underwood, Just a Dream (5, 000, +221%, 974, 000)
Carrie Underwood, How Great Thou Art (5, 000, -14%, 200, 000)

Sales for lots of tracks that were performed plus:

Matthew Morrison, Still Got Tonight (17, 000, +2, 726%, 24, 000)

Here is the roll call of coronation singles (If I don’t post it, somebody will):
1 Clay Aiken “This is the Night”: 393, 000 – Hot 100:1
2 Ruben Studdard “Flying Without Wings” : 286, 000 – Hot 100: 2
3 David Cook “Time of My Life”: 236, 024 – Hot 100: 3, Download: 1
4 Kelly Clarkson “A Moment Like This” : 236, 000 – Hot 100: 1
5 Taylor Hicks “Do I Make You Proud”: 228, 418 (CS: 190, 619; 37, 799) – Hot 100: 1, Downloads: 18
6. Scotty McCreery “I Love You This Big”: 171, 404 – Hot 100: 11; Download: 3
7. Carrie Underwood “Inside Your Heaven”: 170, 528 (CS: 131, 504; 39, 024) – Hot 100: 1, Download: 7
8. Fantasia “I Believe”: 142, 141 – Hot 100: 1
9. Kris Allen “Nou Boundaries”: 134, 458 – Hot 100: 11, Download: 4
10: Bo Bice “Inside Your Heaven”: 121, 423 (CS: 108, 158; 13, 256) – Hot 100: 2, Download: 25
11. Lauren Alaina “Like My Mother Does”: 121, 204, Hot 100: 20; Download: 8
12. Lee DeWyze “Beautiful Day”: 95K – Hot 100: 24, Download: 12
13 Katharine McPhee “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”: 74, 965 (CS: 47, 394; 27, 571) – Hot 100: 12, Downloads: 21
14 Jordin Sparks “This is My Now” 74, 303 – Hot 100: 15, Download: 9
15 Diana Degarmo “Dreams”: 65, 000 – Hot 100: 14
16 Blake Lewis “You Give Love a Bad Name” 70, 133 * – Hot 100: 18, Download: 11
17 Crystal Bowersox “Up to the Mountain” 49K – Hot 100: 57, Download: 32
18 Adam Lambert “No Boundaries”: 35, 984 – Hot 100: 72, Download: 43

* Some may not consider this the coronation song.
Justin and Archie did not get coronation songs released.
Clay and Ruben released their singles the same week.
Kat’s SOTR was released as a double A-Side with her coronation single and since SOTR outsold it on iTunes, sales of the commercial single were all attributed to SOTR
CS = Commercial Single (one-three songs bundled together)

We don’t know yet how Scotty and Lauren will fair on the Hot 100. I wrote an article last year explaining why it is harder for Coronation Singles to do well on the Hot 100 since Season 5. Basically, it boils down to the emergence of a single market (Idol used to be the only game in town) and changes as to how the Hot 100 is calculated (sales account for less than they once did). On a typical week, Scotty would debut on the top 10 of the Hot 100, but this is an extremely competitive week. Both Scotty and Lauren should finish within the top 20.

S6 Sales
S7 Sales
S8 Sales
S9 Sales

In other big news, Billboard has announced that Gaga sold 1, 108, 000 copies of her album Born This Way. BTW is the 17th album to amass more than 1M sales in a week. It is the best selling album since 50cents “The Massacre” in March, 2005 (1.141M). Only 5 female artists have managed to sell more than 1M albums in a single week and BTW will have the second best selling week for an album by a female artist (Britney retains her crown with 1.319M in sales of “Oops! I Did it Again” in May, 2000). Surprisingly, this is the first number 1 debut for Gaga with her two previous albums debuting at 2 and 5.

HDD numbers and Hits Daily Double
Idol Chatter article detailing iTunes rankings

About Kirsten 3060 Articles
Kirsten has had a long love affair with numbers. Marry that with her love of cheese and the Numbers Threads at MJs were born.