Idol Sales News – Week Ending 10/26/08

Please note that the above numbers are the Top 50 song from the download charts plus a few extra songs that have made à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“interestingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  gains in the top 200. Later today, Ken Barnes at Idol Chatter (USA Today) will come out with the full list of Idols in the top 200. We get data as it dribbles out.

Here is some of the airplay chart (this is a differential from last week so the numbers in brackets are gains or losses in millions of audience impressions since last week). Before recurrents are removed:

No. 11 – Jennifer Hudson ( 2.7 million) lw 11
No. 20 – Carrie Underwood ( 2.5 million) lw Unknown
No. 41 – David Archuleta ( 1.8 million) lw 41
No. 330 – David Cook ( 1.7 million) lw 556

Jennifer is number 2 on the R&B airplay chart.

Dang, Cookie!!

I wonder if the nice jump in sales for “Light On” is due to increased airplay or due to the pre-ordering of Cook’s CD. Either way, good for him.

Congrats to Archie for keeping his place at #16.

I was wondering how Jennifer Hudson’s tragedy would affect sales and airplay. The stats are about the same.

You have to assume that a good percentage of the LO singles sales last week were related to the pre-orders. Which is a good thing because in the end its still better to sell albums than singles. LO is doing OK but not great selling single downloads. Jennifer Hudson’s single hasn’t done very well even with huge radio play but her album sales have been very good. It looks like Top 40 sells singles but other radio formats not so much.

David Archuleta…. what else can you say? Amazing. Yes. Awesome. UH HUH… the numbers for Crush are outstanding from week to week, steady and consistent… PLATINUM is within the grasp…. OH BOY!!! And though it’s early, the pre order numbers for him are also fantastic…. BRAVO DAVID… WE’RE SO PROUD OF YOU. :king_tb:

I was wondering how Jennifer Hudsonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s tragedy would affect sales and airplay. The stats are about the same.

We may or may not see the affects of that next week, since it happened Friday.

Good jump Cookie…keep goin’! Wonder how close TOML is to platinum?

Looks like Jordin will have another platinum single under her belt. If you would have told me this, this time last year I wouldn’t have believed it. Congrats Jordin.

My guess based on some of the other numbers leaked on Pulse is that Magic Rainbow sold about 14,000 this week. If that’s right, Magic Rainbow would be at about 970,000—or 30,000 shy of platinum.

In this new digital era, the thought has been posited that the era of the “album sales as king” may be fading, with the rise of the digital download, and outlets such as iTunes – with the focus on singles… can’t say if that’s good or bad… I’m from that glory era of the 45 single and the album, and have an affinity for them, but like everything else, things change, and perhaps what we are seeing is that shift, that change over in the music buying consciousness (and the way labels will have to adjust their marketing) away from “album” is king into “singles” are king…. Time will tell…

Looks like Jordin will have another platinum single under her belt. If you would have told me this, this time last year I wouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have believed it. Congrats Jordin.

Ditto! Jordin is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

My guess based on some of the other numbers leaked on Pulse is that Magic Rainbow sold about 14,000 this week. If thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s right, Magic Rainbow would be at about 970,000à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’ or 30,000 shy of platinum.

WOOHOOO!!! GO Magic Rainbow! Correct me if I’m wrong, if it becomes Platinum, it’ll be the first Coronation song to do so right ?

And congrats to Archie, great numbers there! Btw, anyone know what Jennifer’s album sales are now?

“You have to assume that a good percentage of the LO singles sales last week were related to the pre-orders. You have to assume that a good percentage of the LO singles sales last week were related to the pre-orders. ”

I don’t think that’s a good thing because 33k is not a lot of pre-orders.

itunes is only a percentage of pre-orders. For example my itunes order of Archie’s album is only 1/5th of my total pre-order.

frogcooke, I don’t get it. Do you mean you ordered from Amazon and such as well?

I think iTunes is only responsible for 15% of so of an album’s sales. Obviously, certain artists do better on iTunes than others. The fact that Cook’s album was #2 there for a week is good news and shows alot of interest. The actual number is less important.

Top singles are now selling 2 or 3 million downloads. It’s a whole new world out there.

Digital pre-orders that place an artist in the top 10 on iTunes are usually considered very solid since that means that they are selling as much as albums that are already out. Digital iTunes sales usually do not make the bulk of first week’s sales, so even 20,000 pre-orders in a week is a good thing.

Both Davids are doing extremely well with the pre-orders and are both ahead of Beonce’s pre-order sales, so that’s something to be happy about.

I’m glad “Light On” increased this week even if it wasn’t much. It’s a start! I can’t wait to see its numbers after David and the band perform on SNL.

Crush is doing surprisingly well. It’s holding out very steadily. If it continues to sell consistently like this, Archie should be seeing platinum by Thanksgiving. What with all the TV promos coming up, I think it can easily be done by that time period. :thumbup_tb:

red ridinghood… I preordered from itunes, walmart and 3 from amazon.

I hope albums don’t disappear altogether over the years. I only buy singles if I’m not really all that interested in the artist and couldn’t stand to listen to their whole album. (See Sparks, Jordin).

Considering Light On’s airplay placement, #35 is pretty good news. The song still doesn’t have the airplay Crush or even TOML had its first week. Hopefully things will pick up with the video and the SNL appearance.

(/OT, but if anyone is planning on buying the Snow Patrol album that’s currently #2 on iTunes, amazon is selling the album download for $3.99 this week. Use mj’s amazon link!)

frogcooke, I see, since one has to get the different bonus songs. and jpfan reminded me that physical copies do exist as well, lol forgot about those.

I hope someone answers this, do physical copies of Davids’ cds drop on Nov 11 and 18? Or just the digital? Aside from hearing the music, I also can’t wait to see the liner notes!

I hope albums donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t disappear altogether over the years. I only buy singles if Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m not really all that interested in the artist and couldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t stand to listen to their whole album. (See Sparks, Jordin).

Yep, same here! I bought Jordin’s album after No Air was released..I just wasn’t that interested in buying her album when it came out.

Anyway, the Idols are doing really well

all versions drop on the 11th.

I was curious about how many Crush has sold each week and someone just posted it at another site. I am amazed at how well it does each week.

wk 11- 55,314 – #16 – Total to date – 805,326
wk 10 – 56,216 -#16
wk 9 – 60,490 – #15
wk 8 – 66,677 – #16
wk 7 – 71,631 – #12
wk 6 – 90,005 – #10
wk 5 – 51,400 – #22
wk 4 – 49,752 – #20
wk 3 – 48,122 – #22
wk 2 – 89,472 – #6
wk 1 – 166,247 – #1

“In this new digital era, the thought has been posited that the era of the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“album sales as kingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  may be fading, with the rise of the digital download, and outlets such as iTunes – with the focus on singlesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t

Albums sales are still the only way to make any money on the music. Singles are fun to watch but the only entity that really makes cash off of them is itunes. Singles exist to drive album sales. That is why the music industry is in so much trouble right now. 10 years ago Britney could sing “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and sell 10 million albums at $15 each. Now the biggest smash hit singles are selling 2-4 million at .99 each and most people don’t bother to buy the album. If singles are the future major music labels will be a thing of the past. They need to find a way to get people to buy albums again or they will be out of business.

Thanks frogcooke

I wish Amazon counted for more cos LO is #14 and TOML #25 over there. Crush is #11. Anyone know what the demography of Amazon customers is?

Correct me if I am wrong…but I don’t think the albumn sales ‘count’ in the sinlge sales column. This would mean that LO was hurt badly by the I-tunes problem that prevented sales last week. Now that you can pre-order the whole albumn and get the single for free; you aren’t going to purchase the single. Hopefully albumn sales will be higher.

Likewise, I don’t think you can estimate the pre-orders from this number at all; I don’t think they have any relationship.

As I understand it, you are charged for the single (LO with DC’s record, and Angels with DA’s record) at the time that you make the preorder. That way, if you cancel the preorder, you don’t effectively get a free single. Preorders of the albums count as singles sales in the week of the preorder. Assuming that you don’t cancel the preorder, the effect is that when you download your preorder on 11/11 or 11/18, the net singles sales go down, and the artist then gets credit for the album sale.

As an example, if we assume that out of the 33K copies of LO sold this week, 25K were preorders, then the week of 11/18, the total number of copies of LO would go down by 25K and DC would get credit for 25K album sales based on this past week’s preorders. DA would experience the same thing with any preorder-related Angels sales. No one would not go back in time and adjust the hot digital songs chart from this week—the adjustment would be to avoid double-counting in the totals.

Well said Jlyn… digital downloading (don’t know if it’s best classified as a trend, the coming norm, or phenomena?) has the music industry reeling right now, and they will have to make some serious adjustments in their long held paradigms about the manner in which they’ve sold and marketed their product – especially regarding albums. I held out as long as I could, and had to be drug kicking and screaming into the digital age of itunes, downloading, ipods, etc. I PREFER buying whole albums, as I like listening in entirety to the artists point of view, the songs building a narrative throughout each track to conclusion… but the trend is shifting, and the “old schoolers” at heart like me may have more adjustments to make in what appears for now to be the way things are headed in the bizz…

Excellent points Jlyn! The music industry is a mess and I just
dont see it reverting back to huge album sales unfortunately.
I’m with ggdoorsfan too. I finally had to cave in myself and
go with digital, although it’s killing album sales and the music
industry. I still want to have the hard copy. I’m still hoping
that DC’s album will sell Big, wishing him the best in this
fickle time in the music business.

I don’t know if I am an exception, but I was not charged for the pre-order LO song. I had purchased it previously and was charged for my first copy. Then when I pre-ordered, I got the message that I already had the song, but I purchased the pre-order. My pre-order went through and I received another copy of LO. But was never charged for the second copy. Don’t know how that fits into the whole scheme of things with the numbers etc. LOL

Digital pre-orders that place an artist in the top 10 on iTunes are usually considered very solid since that means that they are selling as much as albums that are already out.

Are HSM’s sales from last week out yet? Just for comparison, since they were the top of the iTunes album chart basically all of last week, and DC was 2nd for at least part of last week. I’m sure the sales gap between 1 and 2 was big though, since HSM wasn’t a preorder? Although I’m thinking iTunes probably only accounts for a fraction of HSM’s total sales since a lot of younger kids don’t have easy access to iTunes (like my cousins, who don’t have credit cards, and are dependent on their parents to get them gift cards to make purchases– they like that they can go to the store with friends and buy physical albums with cash, and not have their parents complain about how much they’re spending on music, etc.)

I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know if I am an exception, but I was not charged for the pre-order LO song. I had purchased it previously and was charged for my first copy. Then when I pre-ordered, I got the message that I already had the song, but I purchased the pre-order. My pre-order went through and I received another copy of LO. But was never charged for the second copy. Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know how that fits into the whole scheme of things with the numbers etc. LOL

Have you checked that your pre-order for David Cook’s album went through on your ‘Manage my Preorders’?

Someone on DCO posted that some of the pre-orders didn’t go through..and thus, people weren’t charged for LO..

I noticed one thing about pre-ordering. I had planned on buying more than one album and gifting and it seems you are unable to do so. I know alot of Archie fans were dissappointed as they wanted to buy multiple copies but were unable to do so until the album comes out. That doesn’t make any sense.

From HDD – Album sales ending 10/26

1 AC/DC COLUMBIA 802,269 —
BLACK ICE
– 2 HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: SENIOR YEAR WALT DISNEY RECORDS 292,318 —
SOUNDTRACK
2 3 T.I. GRAND HUSTLE/ATLANTIC 90,188 -35%
PAPER TRAIL
1 4 KENNY CHESNEY BNA/SBMG NASHVILLE 85,411 -52%
LUCKY OLD SUN
4 5 METALLICA WARNER BROS. 54,240 8%
DEATH MAGNETIC

I’d say figurng out iTunes pre-sales from that is pretty impossible.

lol, you’re right jpfan. It’s difficult to predict the physical cd sales.

Omg at AC/DC, rock sells albums alright. Of course, they’re pretty much a legendary band.

If you were not charged for “Light On” your pre-order might not have gone through. I was charged 99 cents again. However, when I tried pre-ordering the first time (to no avail), I received a free copy of “Light On”. I still have it and have not been charged for it.

Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d say figurng out iTunes pre-sales from that is pretty impossible.

Haha, you’re absolutely right, jpfan, but thanks for humoring me with the info anyway! But just for sh1ts and giggles, if we guess that iTunes amounts to like 15% of album sales for HSM, they sold like 45K on iTunes last week to maintain the #1 spot? So with LO last week at 33K, someone’s guess that DC’s iTunes preorders might have been in the 20K range sounds reasonable to me? I dunno though. I could be totally off, and this is pretty much a useless exercise, but kind of fun nonetheless!

Cheese, I always check what big sale is on Amazon mp3 store, because some of them are amazing values. I got Keane’s new album at $2.99 and would have bought Snow Patrol’s new one at $3.99, but I absolutely can’t stand the single. There’s been Led Zepp and Bob Marley album,at at $5 or less, I’ve bought off them

Redridinghood – I think Amazon’s mp3 customer is older than I-Tunes customer — this is my guess. I think younger downloaders are wedded to I-Tunes. I think new music at low prices appeals to someone out of their teens. I think Catalog albums at great prices appeal to older music lovers.

These are the Top Digital Cd of 2007. If you divide by the 52 weeks it’s less than 5,000 cds a week.

Top-selling digital albums in 2007
It Wonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t Be Soon Before Long/ Maroon 5 252,000
Back To Black/ Amy Winehouse 241,000
Graduation/ Kanye West 237,000
Coco/ Colbie Caillat 207,000
Daughtry/ Daughtry 205,000
Minutes To Midnight/ Linkin Park 189,000
Soundtrack/ High School Musical 2 176,000
Timbaland Presents Shock Value/ Timbaland 151,000
Continuum/ John Mayer 137,000
Futuresex/Love Sounds/ Justin Timberlake 137,000

Haha, youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re absolutely right, jpfan, but thanks for humoring me with the info anyway! But just for sh1ts and giggles, if we guess that iTunes amounts to like 15% of album sales for HSM, they sold like 45K on iTunes last week to maintain the #1 spot? So with LO last week at 33K, someoneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s guess that DCà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s iTunes preorders might have been in the 20K range sounds reasonable to me?

Was HSM available for pre-order? That will further mess up all the stats if it was. Plus, we don’t know what the mix is. Coldplay’s Viva La Vida is the sales leader this year in digital albums moving 584K in the first 9 months (they’ve sold 1,820,000 so far in physical and digital albums). Only 3 other albums this year have managed to move more than 200K in digital albums (only two titles did it in the first 9 months last year). Viva La Vida broke the first-week digital album download sales in the US with 288K (when it had sold 394K digitally, it broke the record for the most digital albums sold). So, this shows that some albums do better digitally than others.

That is why the music industry is in so much trouble right now. 10 years ago Britney could sing à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Hit Me Baby One More Timeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  and sell 10 million albums at $15 each. Now the biggest smash hit singles are selling 2-4 million at .99 each and most people donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t bother to buy the album. If singles are the future major music labels will be a thing of the past. They need to find a way to get people to buy albums again or they will be out of business.

Britney’s big albums came at one of the rare times in the music industry when singles were not king. Prior to the advent of CDs being king, singles sold like hot cakes. Rows and rows of little 45s and the industry was vibrant. A lot of people think that the industry got lazy* during the 90s when singles died out and stopped producing albums with lots of good songs on them. Put on one or two good songs, add a bunch of filler and you are done. Now, singles are starting to dominate and people don’t have to buy the album to get those two decent songs. You can move a lot of albums (look at AC/DC), you just have to make the album worth buying.

The music business amazes me. You can download movies on the internet. You can buy pirated ones at your local night market for $1. Yet DVDs sell like crazy. Some hit DVDs move 5 million units in a single week. How many CDs sell 5 million in their lifetime? The music biz needs to concentrate on how to get people to buy their albums. They are doing something wrong. IMO. How did they use to sell LPs when 45s were purchased like popcorn?

*Another reason the industry got lazy in the 90s is because they made a lot on catalogue sales as people replaced their old LPs and tapes with CDs. That era is pretty much over.

BTW I think an interesting new trend is to release a whack of singles before the album comes out. I’m intrigued.

I don’t know who started it, but I remember a lot of comments about the Jonas Brothers being weird for dropping so many (some speculated they would drop the entire albums as singles before the album came out). Now, we see Taylor Swift releasing a single every other week (or more often). I see Nickelback’s new single is racing up the chart (when did they drop it, yesterday?…they now have two in the top 40 on iTunes). Beyonce released two singles to radio at once. One is already on iTunes and the other is said to be joining it next week. Fall Out Boy’s new album has already had 3 singles (maybe 4) and it’s not out until December.

Maybe this can be used to build anticipation and people might pick up a single or two because they are so cheap. Then, when the album comes out, they will complete their albums because the album will seem cheaper since they already bought the singles. Maybe that will help to spur sells. Or all the singles increase the odds that somebody might like one of the singles (probably a good idea if the singles are a bit different from each other). Anyway, its something new so good on the labels for trying something.

I think they need to offer more incentives for people to buy the albums. I know I lean toward buying singles, but when I see bonus tracks offered with the albums, then I will sometimes buy the album. One or two bonus tracks isn’t always enough to entice me, but if they would offer maybe 5 or so, then I would be more inclined to get the album. Or getting the video with it also might entice me. I am sure there are other ideas for things they could give away also (maybe apps etc). They need to make it more worth our while! Give us MORE!

I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know if I am an exception, but I was not charged for the pre-order LO song. I had purchased it previously and was charged for my first copy. Then when I pre-ordered, I got the message that I already had the song, but I purchased the pre-order. My pre-order went through and I received another copy of LO. But was never charged for the second copy. Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know how that fits into the whole scheme of things with the numbers etc.

I’ve seen lots and lots of people posting on DCO about how they THOUGHT they had pre-ordered Cook’s album but found out that their pre-order did not, in fact, go through. Basically, if you don’t have a “Manage Pre-Orders” button under your “My Account” and the Cook album is not listed in the “Manage Pre-Orders” page, the pre-order just never went through. Remeber that there were glitches galore on iTunes for the Cook album pre-order for a period of 4-5 days or so, so it’s definitely worth checking out whether you actually have a “Manage Pre-Orders” button and that listed within it is the Cook album.

Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ve seen lots and lots of people posting on DCO about how they THOUGHT they had pre-ordered Cookà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s album but found out that their pre-order did not, in fact, go through. Basically, if you donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Manage Pre-Ordersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  button under your à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“My Accountà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  and the Cook album is not listed in the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Manage Pre-Ordersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  page, the pre-order just never went through.

Thanks everyone for the information. I will double check when I get home tonight from work that I have indeed pre-ordered it. I’ll also double check my account statement from iTunes to see what I have been charged so far. Grrrr…it shouldn’t be this difficult to pre-order an album!

latingrl2005- This is kind of random, I thought of this after seeing your chart of top albums. This guy came to my house to inspect my insulation because the power and gas company are giving out rebates for upgrading if your insulation is too low. We are all musicians and I have a drumset and huge keyboard set up in my living room right now because my husband and son are preparing for a production. Anyway, when this guy saw that, he told me that just down the street from me is the father of the lead guitarist for Maroon 5 and that when he was there, this guy showed him a room with all kinds of cool stuff like platinum records and grammys. Cool.

How did they use to sell LPs when 45s were purchased like popcorn?

Back in the day, music wasn’t such big business. It was a really big deal when an album went gold. Selling 500,000 copies of an album was considered incredible. It wasn’t until the late 70′s when some of that started to change, then you could still buy singles, but albums were already overtaking the marketplace. Then, you could buy cassettes to play in your car. (I never bought cassettes, I thought it was terrible technology, and I was right. I went from albums, straight to CD) Part of the reason so many CDs sold in the 90′s was that folks were buying greatest hits, reissues and compilations to replace their old albums.

Anyway, these days, folks just don’t have the patience to sit through an entire album. People fill their Ipods up with a potpourri of tunes from different artists and find that satisfying.

I still like to buy CDs. I like to own my music. It’s a little bit more work, but I prefer to rip a digital copy from a CD, like when I made home made tapes from the albums I bought back in the 80′s. It’s the best of both worlds!

At this point, in order to sell albums, they have to be more than just a collection of songs. Every song is going to have to be good, and maybe producers will have to incorporate themes–making albums that NEED to be listened to from beginning to end. It used to be that way, but not any more.

Anyway, these days, folks just donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have the patience to sit through an entire album. People fill their Ipods up with a potpourri of tunes from different artists and find that satisfying.

That’s, me for the most part, but there are exceptions. But if I find an artist or an album I really love, then I do order the whole thing, (usually on iTunes, but occasionally from Amazon if the physical CD is a better deal, and I have the patience to wait for it to ship.) I typically listen to songs from one of my mixed music playlists, but sometimes my mood strikes, and I might feel like listening to some Dave Matthews, or Death Cab, or Green Day or whatever. Then, I’ll play their whole album because those artists tend to make records with a cohesive sound that I enjoy listening to the whole way through. But lately, it takes a lot for me to buy a whole album. I fell in love with a couple of songs from Ingrid Michaelson’s last album, but I never loved the rest of the songs enough to complete the album. I already like a handful of the new songs from Be OK, but the complete album function is such a safety net for me that even if I decide there are 5 great songs worth buying, I won’t feel compelled to get the whole thing. I can just slap those 5 new songs in a playlist with the other 2 I have, and I’ll have a 7-song playlist of Ingrid Michaelson that’s kind of like creating my own “Best Of” compilation without having to buy any full albums. I mean, to have 5 great songs on an album is really not easy/common, so I’m a difficult customer!

Btw, thanks for the heads up on the Snow Patrol sale. I’ve actually never ordered MP3′s from Amazon before, but I’m definitely ordering that for the cost of 4 songs!

How did they use to sell LPs when 45s were purchased like popcorn?

I think a lot of it is just the technology. Playing singles on 45 was a pain in the ass! Thank god I was a kid in the early 80s and had the energy to get up every 4 minutes and put a new one hit wonder on the turntable.

I still download whole albums from my favorite artists, but I’ve noticed that I don’t always listen to them once they’re added to the other 6,000 or whatever songs on my iPod. I remember downloading the latest REM album months ago, but I know I haven’t sat and listened to it from beginning to end yet and maybe I never will. I’ve heard a few of the songs while shuffling ALL of my REM songs. So even though I haven’t given up on buying albums, I certainly don’t sit and absorb whole albums the way I used to when I only bought physical CDs. The iPod has definitely messed with my attention span.

to add to this, back in the day when I was growing up, we gave up on 45s and strictly purchased 8-tracks, albums and eventually cassettes, you basically had to listen to the whole album, 8-track or cassette unless you wanted to continually swap out media or found a compilation 8-track/album or created a compilation cassette. The same holds true when CDs became available until they invented multi-tray CD players. Playback variety wasn’t readily available early on.

Today’s technology is inadvertantly phasing out physical media. Sorry for this long pointless post.

yes I agree that attention spans are also being altered by technology as well

Album sales from Idol Chatter HERE.

Here are the download numbers from Idol Chatter HERE.

The Time of My Life also bounces upward, 118-94, selling 13,000, up 34%, for a total of 970,000.

Interesting discussion about changes in how music is consumed. I’ve been listening to and buying music since the mid-70s, going through LPs, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, and now downloads. I have to say, iPods/ mp3 players are one of the best things that’s happened in my life as a music listener! I still can’t get over the fact that a tiny little box has my entire music collection on it, and I can quickly and easily flit from song to song and album to album. Even disc-mans weren’t anywhere’s near as easy to use. And yes, I am starting to cherry pick albums on the one hand, but on the other hand, the instant gratification of being able to preview an entire song or even album, and then immediately buy and download it, leads to a lot more impulse purchases, and to buying parts of albums when I simply wouldn’t buy the whole album. I think Lala.com is a great idea- you can listen to anything once free, then pay a dime a song for unlimited streaming, then pay a similar price to iTunes to buy it outright (and DRM-free). If I’m on the fence about an album, it’s worth it to pay for the streaming so that I can listen a few more times before I make a decision. (Of course I usually buy from iTunes, using MJ’s link!)

Oh, yeah, this is about the Idols- well, I hope that they allow their albums to be on Lala, Rhapsody, etc. I think it’s the future of the music biz, and it’s better to find a way to make new technology work for you than to try to keep things from changing.

Billboard Hot 100:

lw TW Artist Title
21 20 DAVID ARCHULETA CRUSH
28 24 HUDSON*JENNIFER SPOTLIGHT-REMIXES
20 27 JORDIN SPARKS ONE STEP AT A TIME
37 34 CARRIE UNDERWOOD JUST A DREAM
– 60 DAVID COOK LIGHT ON

R&B 100
1 2 HUDSON*JENNIFER SPOTLIGHT-REMIXES

No word yet as to where Daughtry is–probably somewhere in 51-100.

More numbers have dribbled out. Again, I’m sorry, but I only have the stats for Crush…

lw TW Chart
21 20 Hot 100
16 15 Pop 100 Airplay
13 13 Mainstream Top 40
14 14 Hot AC Tracks
24 21 Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks
16 16 Hot Digital Songs

Trending upwards again this week. Way to go, Archie!!! :thumbup_tb:

^^ Nice!

Wonder what its Hot 100 Airplay placement is this week.

^^ I think over on one of the Pulse boards, Crush was No. 22 after recurrents were removed from the all airplay chart.

^^ I don’t think that’s right. It was 41 before recurrents, so it would be in the upper 30s I would think. No way there’s 20 recurrents right below it.

Blame Shawn Fanning. Itunes (etc.) is the music industry’s response to the rationale of most illegal dowloaders (“I’m not cheating the artist out of money because I only want this one song, and if I couldn’t get this song for free, I would just live without it– I wouldn’t buy a whole album just to get one song.”)

So enterprising capitalists came up with Itunes and their ilk (“Fine, you only want one song– you can have it legally for just a dollar!”)

One of the trends I see this leading to is what I’ll call the increased “poppification” of music. Now we’re moving in a direction where every song has to be of the hit variety. I’m with those who hate filler on albums (who isn’t?), but some great songs on many albums aren’t (or in the past weren’t) meant to be radio single-types. I see that changing now.

More Crush numbers…

lw TW Chart
21 20 Hot 100
41 41 Hot 100 Airplay
15 16 Pop 100
16 15 Pop 100 Airplay
13 13 Mainstream Top 40
14 14 Hot AC Tracks
24 21 Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks
16 16 Hot Digital Tracks
16 16 Hot Digital Songs
19 18 Canadian Hot 100
28 23 Hot Canadian Digital Singles
35 35 Hot Ringmasters

Only one number in the red. Way to go, Archie! :thumbup_tb: