Digital sales roundup: "Live Like We're Dying" #28 (12/26/09)

There was a significant changing of the guard among Idol-related tracks on the most recent edition of Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart.

For the first time, Kris Allen's single "Live Like We're Dying" was the top-billed entry on the chart from an alum, as it moved forward by 10 spots to #28 with 35.6k copies sold. It was up 29% for the week and has totaled 249.9k to date, showing it will put up a fight to reach gold.

This news means Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone" slipped to second among tracks by alums, as it was down 13% to 32.6k. On the chart it was off 10 spots to #24 and has sold 879.7k in all, meaning it will go platinum in either the last week of 2009 or the first week of 2010. Kelly also saw her mega-successful "My Life Would Suck Without You" re-enter at #174, buoyed up 147% by the cover of the song from the cast of Glee that was released last week. It now boasts a total of 2.160 million.

Following Kelly's first track, Carrie Underwood was next with "Cowboy Casanova," which declined #28-36 thanks to an 8% sales decrease to 31.9k downloads. Its current total of 675.9k suggests it will eventually reach platinum status, but don't expect this until early 2010.

Daughtry's "Life After You" came next at #64, up from #81 the previous week thanks to a 21% sales incline. Its additional 20.4k tracks puts its total at 80.9k. And Adam Lambert's new single "Whataya Want From Me" witnessed a 9% sales increase to 10.2k, advancing #163-152 on the chart. It now has a total of 31.4k.

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

028 038 Kris Allen, "Live Like We're Dying" 35,553 29% 27,641 249,861
034 024 Kelly Clarkson, "Already Gone" 32,608 -13% 37,466 879,712
036 028 Carrie Underwood, "Cowboy Casanova" 31,919 -8% 34,672 675,926
064 081 Daughtry, "Life After You" 20,355 21% 16,890 80,918
152 163 Adam Lambert, "Whataya Want From Me" 10,178 9% 9,372 31,421
174 --- Kelly Clarkson, "My Life Would Suck Without You" 8,837 147% 3,584 2,160,105

Total sales are in bold.