Digital songs roundup: "I Told You So" #4 (3/20/09)

After being swamped by an onslaught of Kelly Clarkson songs last week, Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart took a breather this week when it was another winner's turn to shine.

Carrie Underwood's latest single, "I Told You So," received enough of a sales boost to lead all Idol-related tracks on the chart thanks to the release of a duet version of the song with Randy Travis and a subsequent performance on last week's Idol results show. The single rocketed 89 spots to #4 thanks to a 701% sales increase, moving 125.8k downloads. This puts its total at 221.6k.

Carrie also saw some older hits see sales gains (and one big fall) thanks to Idol. Her "Home Sweet Home" send-off song fell a hefty 65% to 39.3k downloads, marking a #10-40 spot decline. Its total after two weeks is 151.5k. As for "Jesus, Take the Wheel," a 201% sales jump was in store as it sold 17.1k for the week, making a re-entry at #85 a reality. The total for Carrie's first non-Idol single is now 1.487 million. And then there was Carrie's perennial fave "Before He Cheats," which increased its total sales take to 2.682 million with an additional 9.4k downloads sold for the week, marking a slight 12% uptick and a 47-spot jump to #147.

Aside from Carrie, Kelly still had a big sales week with former #1 "My Life Would Suck Without You," which dropped #6-7 thanks to a 13% sales dip to 122.2k. It has now sold 1.410 million in all. The only album track from All I Ever Wanted that survived a second week on the chart was "Already Gone," which dropped #46-129 to 10.4k for the week. This 68% free-fall now puts the song's total at 42.8k after two weeks.

Full numbers and chart positions courtesy of bks on Pulse as follows:

004 093 Carrie Underwood, "I Told You So" 125,806 701% 15,706 221,637
007 006 Kelly Clarkson, "My Life Would Suck..." 122,175 -13% 141,167 1,410,446
040 010 Carrie Underwood, "Home Sweet Home" 39,306 -65% 112,170 151,476
085 --- Carrie Underwood, "Jesus, Take the Wheel" 17,131 201% 5,696 1,487,230
129 046 Kelly Clarkson, "Already Gone" 10,393 -68% 32,401 42,794
147 194 Carrie Underwood, "Before He Cheats" 9,410 12% 8,368 2,682,246

Total sales are in bold.