HITS estimates: 'For Your Entertainment' #3 w/ 196k

It was a big week for Idol alums thanks to strong black Friday sales according to HITS Daily Double's Top 50 building album sales chart.

Debuting at #3 was Adam Lambert's For Your Entertainment, which opened with 196k copies in a controversy-filled week beginning with his much talked about performance at the American Music Awards. The debut is a little bit lower than HDD's revised predictions of 210-230k, and it is a little higher than my predictions of 175k.

Carrie Underwood was next with her album Play On, which held steady at #9 thanks to a 34% sales gain to 114.4k copies. The boost was courtesy of a black Friday price cut at retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.com to $6.99 and her performances at the AMAs and the CNN Heroes special.

And Kris Allen's self-titled album was down 59% in its second week to 34.9k copies. The heavy shopping week didn't seem to cushion the album, as it was down 21 spots to #31 on the chart as well.

Full sales numbers and chart positions courtesy of Billboard should be out by the end of the week.