HDD – Album Sales Prediction : Apr 30-May 6

By On 05/08/2012 · 60 Comments · In American Idol, Charts, X Factor

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With 52.57% of the reports in, Carrie Underwood is blowing away the competition at number 1. Idol’s Season 4 winner is expected to cruise to an easy victory with this album and top both the Country and BB200 charts. “Blown Away” is Carrie’s 4th studio album and the debut single is having success on both Country and Mainstream charts.

Carrie’s biggest challenge is from the ever-popular NOW franchise, NOW 42. These compilation albums of hits or hopefully soon to be hits are released every few months with the labels cooperatively working together to rake in the dough. NOW 42 features tracks by Idol’s Kelly Clarkson and X-Factor’s One Direction.

It would be rare to discuss the top 3 in the last year and not mention Adele, so Adele is currently in third.

Then, we have a whack of Country albums. Lionel Richie’s Country duet album is at 4th, Luke Bryan is 5th, Kip Moore is at 6th, Lee Brice at 8th and Eric Church at 10th. That makes 6 Country albums in the top 10. Looks like Country has put on its boots and is taking names.

Besides Adele and NOW, non-Country artists in the top 10 are One Direction (yep, there are two albums with the same name in the top 10…although it happens more often that repeat titles are used for songs, it does happen for albums as well. Both Kip and 1D have songs racing up their respective charts and consumers are smart enough to figure it all out) and Norah Jones.

The only other solo Idol on the chart this week is Kelly Clarkson. Her album “Stronger” is at 36th. She also appears on Jason Aldean’s album “My Kinda Party” at 12th. Other blog notable albums are Voice judge Blake Shelton’s album at 20th and the “Smash” cast album at 34th.

CHART DATE: 05/07/2012
LAST UPDATE: 05/07/2012 11:27:41
NOW IN: 52.57%

LW TW artist / album label power index
– 1 CARRIE UNDERWOOD BLOWN AWAY 60,647
– 2 NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 42 VARIOUS ARTISTS 51,184
2 3 ADELE 21 30,436
3 4 LIONEL RICHIE TUSKEGEE 26,561
12 5 LUKE BRYAN TAILGATES & TANLINES 15,047
6 6 KIP MOORE UP ALL NIGHT 14,064
4 7 ONE DIRECTION UP ALL NIGHT 12,928
5 8 LEE BRICE HARD 2 LOVE 11,928
– 9 NORAH JONES LITTLE BROKEN HEARTS 10,418
17 10 ERIC CHURCH CHIEF 9,865
…
27 12 JASON ALDEAN MY KINDA PARTY 8,554
…
19 20 BLAKE SHELTON RED RIVER BLUE 4,756
…
– 34 SMASH CAST MUSIC OF SMASH 3,103
…
41 36 KELLY CLARKSON STRONGER 3,008
…
35 50 KATY PERRY TEENAGE DREAM 1,680

Hits Daily Double

 
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  • Valentin432

    What Makes You Beautiful is an international hit, it’s not only popular in the UK or the US, it’s a big pop hit everywhere, same thing for Call Me Maybe.

    If an idol produce a big hit, PDs won’t care where they come from, it just hasn’t been the case lately.

  • windmills

    pat345:  i like water tower town i heard it during the crook and chase countdown
    and i thought it was just as good as the other songs on the countdown.

    I can agree that Water Tower Town isn’t much worse than most of what’s on country radio right now. But, IMO that says more about the sad state of country radio than anything else ;) Too, there’ve been plenty of songs that I don’t like but that I knew would become country radio hits. I’m not hearing that in WTT.

    So like TTWG I’m feeling a double whammy of a song that doesn’t showcase what I think is special about Scotty AND a song that I don’t think will do much as far as advancing his cause at country radio. But I still think it’ll probably continue his t20 streak though so it’s not like I think it’s a catastrophe or anything.

    Tess: I’m not an over invested Carrie fan and I think 270k for a “country”
    artist releasing in the spring is a damn good number.  It isn’t like
    sold her album for 99cents, or did some of the other “promotions” that
    have been so prevalant this last year or two.

    Yeah, the cheapest you could get Carrie’s CD was $9.99 at Amazon, Target and Best Buy. Even at Walmart it was $11.88 and at Itunes it’s $11.99. I was actually a little surprised there wasn’t at least a $7.99 or $8.99 deal somewhere (that’s part of why my original estimate was in the 225-250k range). I guess those discounts may still come later and retailers figured Carrie’s hard core fans weren’t going to be that price-sensitive when it came to the new album. They may figure they’ll grab casual fans later with those deals after more of the songs are familiar to the general public. No idea, really.

  • Anonymous

    Haley is doing several performances/cd signings the week of her cd release. Depending on what size venues they are using for these, that could give her some sort of boost in the 1st week sales as well

  • Mateja Praznik

     Well, it’s simple. Simon and his label saw money in 1D and they really put an effort in launching them. Savan Kotecha, songwriter that worked 1D on the X Factor, knew exactly what kind of songs suited 1D the best and he teamed up with Rami Yacoub (Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Westlife) and Carl Falk.

    Rami Yacoub’s credits are especially impressive:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rami_Yacoub
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Falk
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savan_Kotecha

    XF UK also gives a little more time to the acts to produce first albums, so debuts don’t feel that rushed. And, many in recent years release sophomore albums exactly one year after debut albums. One Direction will probably release another album in the fall. This one is done in the UK and One Thing will most likely be the last single in the US from this album. They have sold out international tour from February to October 2013 and there is no way they can tour one their one album that was released last fall.

    It helps that the boys were on XF UK, in America they aren’t perceived as reality show contestants because the show they were on wasn’t on US television.

    19 just isn’t putting that much effort in Idol alums IMO.

  • Anonymous

    I wonder how Call Me Maybe would have done if Justin Bieber hadn’t promoted it. It’s a catchy enough song, but if he hadn’t said anything about it, chances are it wouldn’t be anywhere near as a big of a hit.

  • Anonymous

    When did the label develop this XF UK album release pattern? Was it present during the early years of the show?

  • Anonymous

    I find it interesting that US pop radio is embracing reality show
    artists from the UK and Canada with open arms while ignoring US artists
    from such shows.

    I don’t think that they ignore Idols because they are from the how, they just don’t give them star treatment as they used to that allowed them to get away with not strong enough singles.
    International reality show artists who make them in the US have singles that are a good fit for the playlists and readily catch on with the audience.

  • Anonymous

    But there isn’t a very long track record of international reality show artists having success in the US market. Leona Lewis disappeared after one big hit single. Who knows what will happen with The Wanted, Carly Rae Jepsen or One Direction in the future? There’s no guarantee they will end up having any better long term success in this market than the people coming off Idol have had.

  • Anonymous

    My point is that that they are doing well because the  material of these paticular artists appeals to the  audience now. Who knows what will happen later.

    In the case of the X Factor, Simon Cowell/ Syco / Sony have made mistakes in the past with US releases, but there is now a very strong drive to succeed and for this they have finally decided to get material to their artists that makes them competitive in the current music landscape. ..unlike Idol…or for Idol as Sony deals with some of them…

  • Valentin432

    It was a huge hit in Canada way before Bieber said or tweeted anything about it.

    Bieber doesn’t make a song a hit just by talking about it, even his own songs don’t always perform as well as CMM has done.

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