Now that the debut week sales numbers for Kris Allen's and Adam Lambert's post-Idol singes are finalized, it's interesting to see where their data fit in the bigger Idol winner and runner-up picture.
Although it is a little difficult to accurately rank the numbers considering the differences in the sales releases, I did my best to come up with how things should look with Hot 100 peaks (and debuts).
Winners
1) Ruben Studdard, "Flying Without Wings / Superstar" - 286,000* - #2 (#2)
2) David Cook, "The Time of My Life" - 236,024 - #3 (#3)
3) Kelly Clarkson, "A Moment Like This / Before Your Love" - 236,000* - #1 (#52)
4) Taylor Hicks, "Do I Make You Proud / Takin' It to the Streets" - 190,147* - #1 (#1)
5) Fantasia, "I Believe / Chain of Fools / Summertime" - 142,141* - #1 (#1)
6) Kris Allen, "No Boundaries" - 134,458 - #11 (#11)
7) Carrie Underwood, "Inside Your Heaven / Independence Day" - 131,504* - #1 (#1)
8) Jordin Sparks, "This Is My Now" - 74,303 - #15 (#15)
*denotes only commercial singles counted
So as you can see, Kris' "No Boundaries" comes in at #6 among winners' debut single sales, with only Carrie Underwood's "Inside Your Heaven / Independence Day" and Jordin Sparks' "This Is My Now" coming in behind it. Now, as indicated above, some singles are only including commercial single sales (aka physical copies), which makes things a little tricky. If digital sales are combined, we'd see Carrie's "Inside Your Heaven" at 170,528 total single sales, and Taylor Hicks' "Do I Make You Proud" would be at 228,418. But the reason I did not include those is because they do not take the digital sales for "Independence Day" and "Takin' It to the Streets" into consideration.
Runners-Up
1) Clay Aiken, "This Is The Night / Bridge over Troubled Water" - 393,000* - #1 (#1)
2) Adam Lambert, "Mad World" - 114,763 - #19 (#19)
3) Bo Bice, "Inside Your Heaven / Vehicle" - 108,158* - #2 (#2)
4) David Archuleta, "Imagine" - 71,178 - #36 (#36)
5) Blake Lewis, "You Give Love a Bad Name" - 70,133 - #18 (#18)
6) Diana DeGarmo, "Dreams / Don't Cry Out Loud / I Believe" - 65,000* - #14 (#14)
7) Katharine McPhee, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow / My Destiny" - 47,394* - #12 (#12)
As for the runners-up, Adam's highest-selling track, "Mad World," actually stands at #2 when compared to the other six singles' debut week sales in the same manner. But if digital sales are included, Bo Bice's "Inside Your Heaven / Vehicle" has a total of 121,423 downloads, which puts him ahead of Adam.
On the Hot 100 side of things, Kris has the second-lowest debut on the chart for any winner (only ahead of Jordin's "This Is My Now") and Adam's highest-charting single is also the second-lowest debut for any runner up on the chart (ahead of David Archuleta's "Imagine").
But there are plenty of other factors to consider when comparing the single sales from over the years. For example, the recent singles (seasons 6-8) have all been made available to download almost instantly after a winner was crowned, whereas the previous five seasons all had their commercial singles for winners and runners-up wait a few weeks before being released. Also, the formula that is used to determine how singles chart on the Billboard Hot 100 has changed since digital sales have become more important to the chart, which has put more of an emphasis on sales and in effect provided for a much bigger sample of competition for the more recent singles.
Another major factor that should be considered is pricing differences. When the third season's singles went for more than five dollars for three songs and even the other seasons that had physical singles saw price tags of over three dollars for two songs, it is hard to compare those with seasons 6-8 that had $0.99 (and a $1.29) downloads.
Back in the day when the commercial singles were must-have collectors items for any self-respecting Idol fan, the sales looked much more impressive, especially when compared to rival entries on the Billboard Commercial Single Sales chart. If they kept with the tradition nowadays, things might be in a similar situation, but it's also entirely possible that the advent of digital singles and necessity of having things instantly could have destroyed the novelty of having the CD singles.
Either way, it is interesting to see how the sales of these silly coronation songs have changed depending on the year and the Idol winner/runner-up.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Kris' and Adams' first week sales in comparison
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11 comments:
I would think the cheaper price and instant download would make for higher #'s for the more recent crop.
Never underestimate the influence that Ruben and Clay had on the popularity of Idol.
I don't think people are as invested as they were "back in the day".
With the invention of power voting devices, the 'hype' of 100 million voted is just that, HYPE.
"ride my coattails" my rear end! Go Clay!
Interesting. I guess there is some truth to the position that Adam is more loved by the media & TPTB at IDOL than by the general public. Clay & Ruben still undefeated every way you look at it (sales, ratings, media interest). There's is a season that will never be matched in terms of public adoration.
Go Clay and Ruben. Adam, watch out buddy, you may be holding on to your own coattail. God don't like ugly.
In the beginning God made ADAM not ugly (Aiken). Adam has always been sophisticated not like other runner-ups!
Who's riding on whose coattails now??? haha. I think that the influence left by Ruben and Clay after season 2 was so vast that people actually wanted to see more of Idol.
It should also be noted that viewership ratings for AI Season 2 were 38.1 million (the largest in Idol history) compared to AI Season 8's of 27.7 million (the second lowest - Season 1 was 22.5.
Guess Lambert wasn't has much as a draw as his fans would like to think.
lambert is flopping big time, al the way around... and american idol, 19e, rca, and the kool aid drinking media and press are looking all kinds stupid right now. the hype and the numbers he's put up so far are woefully out of sync, the s7 david's are crushing him and allen in singles sales thus far. there is no spin to save the suck that was season 8, and the horrible numbers the winner, the runner up, and allison have put up... rca and idol have jumped the shark, and people are sick of the overpimping and blatant manipulations that went on this season... s8 was a joke, and it's being reflected in the response to these singers.
oh idollive, stop it with this ridiculous spinning of these singles sales number, first week, for adam and kris. they stink, they are shockingly underwhelming, and no amount of backpedaling and hocus pocus and pulling out numbers and singles not even relevant to this week's billboards numbers is absurd...
it's pathethic to see the amount of journalists covering their butts now that the lies and hype has been exposed...allen and lambert's downloads are pathethic compared to the david's, and not befitting a winner and runner up... lambert's situation is even more pathetic, because he has been overhyped, overpimped, shoved down the throats of the public to a degree that it's become annoying... anyone with half a brain can see what you're doing here, and it's pathetic... just call it like it is - massive fail. you all will be laughingstocks for drinking the kool aid supplied by 19e and idol as long as you have. the public is speaking, and your spinning won't be able to hide the fact that what idol has tried to sell in lambert and allen, we don't want.
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