Idol Sales News – Week Ending 12/26/10

By On 12/29/2010 · 246 Comments · In American Idol, Charts

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This was likely the best selling week of the year and how did the Idols fare? Let’s see.

There are 5 Idols that make the BB200. Crystal leads the pack with a 35% drop in her second week. Carrie, Fantasia, Lee and Daughtry not only stay on the chart with double digit increases, they all move up the ordinals on the chart.

Outside of the BB200, there are more mixed results. We still see huge gains from people like Danny (who hit the 200K mark), but the Christmas albums took a hit and saw declines. These are just the intial numbers (please see disclaimer).

Please note that Crystal’s manager leaked her numbers early so the discussion of her numbers is being held here. Please avoid splitting the conversation over the two threads.

Update: Added some sales stats from Billboard

Disclaimer: We do not have access to the full SoundScan stats each week. We are dependent on leaks from a variety of sources. The primary source of these leaks is Brian at Idol Chatter. He can have up to 3 updates a week for albums alone. The first set of numbers features those albums in the top 200 and some Nashville based artists. The second release features albums in the top 200 for the year and perhaps more Nashville based artists. The final release may include some special requests he gets from his users. At no point should anybody conclude that albums that are not listed sold fewer albums than the least selling album listed. All that one can conclude is that the album is not likely in the top 200 for the week or the year (Brian is human and does make the odd mistake which he later fixes). We have seen several times that the third release of special request numbers features albums that have sold more than the least selling album listed. We are grateful for any numbers we can get.

Album Numbers
47 Crystal Bowersox “Farmer’s Daughter” 37,710 (-35%; lw 57,804) Total: 95,566 (28)
61 Carrie Underwood “Play On” 31K (+22%; lw 25k ) Total: 1.917M (63)
114 Fantasia “Back to Me” 16K (35%; 12K) Total: 376K (123) (doesn’t quite add up (last week 362K))
125 Lee DeWyze “Live It Up” 14K (+13%; lw 12K ) Total: 98K (133)
161 Daughtry “Leave This Town” 11K (+37%; lw 8K) Total: 1.221M (179)

Danny Gokey “My Best Days” 2K (+24%; lw 2K) Total: 200K
Jason Castro “Who I Am” 2K (+3%; lw 2K) Total: 10K
Mandisa “True Beauty <1K (-3%; lw <1K) Total: 218K
Chris Sligh “The Anatomy of Broken” <1K (+6%; <1K) Total: 7K
Mandisa “Freedom” <1K (+5%; <1K) Total: 132K
Clay Aiken “Merry Christmas With Love” <1K (-10%; lw <1K) Total: 1.414M (somehow less than last week?)

Rounded numbers from Brian over at Idol Chatter.

From Billboard:
Total albums sold this week: 15.08M, up 21% from last week (12.49M) down 12% compared to 2009 (17.14M)
YTD Album Sales : 319.01M (down 13% from 2009: 336.13M)

Digital Tracks sold this week: 43.96M, up 108% compared to last 233k (21.18M) and down 2% compared to 2009 (44.75M – note that Christmas was one day earlier last year).
YTD Track Sales: 1.129B (up 1% from last year, 1.122B)

 
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  • fadetowhite

    That is the legal requirement for the BBC — the actual % British Content is around 55% of Radio 1.

    And since British artists represent far less than 40% of English language music sales, it is an artificial limit on non-UK artists.

    I think the UK has it pretty much right.

    There are loads of great UK acts out there and the BBC’s approach to UK music gives it room to grow. ITA with Hazeleh that there is and always has been a strong appetitie for UK music in the UK (and as in this quote the UK market is being discussed that is relevant).

    Personally, I think that Canada and NZ and Australia etc should do the same thing: protect their own musicians and allow continued access for new acts to develop within their own countries. (ETA: if they are allowing US music to completely dominate the usual means of publicity within their countries, the radio, then maybe that’s why the percentages are so biased in favour of the US, US money and US tastes. Now, I love US culture as much as anyone, but I don’t want it to be the only viable English speaking culture out there. And the danger is, with any financially dominant culture, that it will squash everything else out of existance, given the chance).

    That said, there is still plenty of room for non-UK acts to make it big as well (and in the UK non-UK acts normally means US acts). It seems to me that the rule of thumb for top 40 and radio play is that the act has become a big smash hit in the US – that’s why both Jordin and Kelly got and get widespread radio play in the UK: big smash hit singles.

    However, some of the smaller and more obscure US acts/bands also do really well on the albums chart over here: Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses etc…

    ETA2: from my reading of the above discussion (and I’m not an expert) that makes the UK market pretty similar to the US one: big smash English language hits from other markets have access, but most music played is from the country of origin. It’s just that in the US, which is extremely dominated by US music and notoriously hard to break into from outside the US, the control comes from the music companies, whereas in the UK, there is a body from outside the music industry exerting some influence: not a bad thing, IMO).

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