Kris Allen, Adam Lambert and Allison Iraheta: Cumulative Soundscan Totals

By On 11/06/2009 · 195 Comments · In Adam Lambert, Allison Iraheta, American Idol, Kris Allen

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Idol numbers guy, Brian Mansfield of USA Today’s Idol Chatter,   ended his week of Idol blogging with some bonus numbers from Soundscan:

For this week’s Random Friday Memo, I picked up a few bonus numbers from the Nielsen SoundScan folks that I figured you might enjoy: the cumulative track downloads for three of this past American Idol season’s top finishers. (If I had realized Danny Gokey would debut his single this week, I would’ve gotten his, too.)

Kris Allen: 1.1 million
Adam Lambert: 923,000
Allison Iraheta: 31,000

I’m assuming these are total single sales for each Idol so far, including the sale of Idol downloads during the season? Not sure though, Brian needs to clarify.   If he does, I’ll append this post.

UPDATE: Brian has clarified: The numbers do not include downloads sold during the season–those numbers were never reported to Soundscan.

Just for kicks, Brian added that the Adam Lambert/Allison Iraheta version of “Slow Ride” had 42,000 downloads, while the Kris Allen/Danny Gokey “Renegade” sold 20,000 copies.

I’m surprised Allison’s numbers aren’t higher. But, Kris and Adam’s numbers look about right, considering how the contest turned out.

The numbers are interesting, but I don’t think they have much bearing on the Idols now, as they face selling their music beyond the so-called Idol bubble.

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  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    I’m surprised Allison’s numbers aren’t higher. But, Kris and Adam’s numbers look about right, considering how the contest turned out.

    I don’t come to the same conclusion. I see that Kris got a bounce from the win and had NOBO to bring his numbers up plus he has had a single out for nearly two months. Yes Adam as TFM, but it’s only been out for a few weeks. As stated, Adam and Allisons duet MV sold twice as much as Kris and Danny’s duet, yet those numbers are not being considered.

    Without album sales and MV factored in, it really is an incomplete picture and therefore no conclusions can be made from these numbers except how much Adam and Kris made post season on singles. :)

  • lorismile

    Undercooked – I’m a HUGE Adam fan. I thought posting the numbers with Kris leading the pact would quiet all the BS comparisons. Honestly, at this point, I really don’t care who won Idol. I just want Adam to do well with his own stuff. I can see that all the numbers do is to keep driving the Idol comparisons. It’s too bad fans can’t just enjoy the talents of their favorites without trying to justify everything. It’s probably the same way every year with Idol I guess. Although I never watched before, I see people on here still bring up David C and David A.

  • Trina

    BTW, samples of Susan Boyle’s CD tracks got aired on QVC last week. In one hour, approximately 20,000 of her CD album got sold as claimed by QVC. True or not, I have no way of knowing.

    I didn’t actually see when Susan Boyle was on QVC but shortly after she was on one of the hosts mentioned that orders were flying in like they never saw before for an artist selling a CD on there, that’s what my mother heard anyway. I know when Clay was on there hawking his CD he sold 15,000 total through them so if she sold 20,000 in an hour thats insane.

  • AllenTX

    LOL, every grandma and mom is getting SuBo for holiday. Is it gonna be like Groban’s christmas album last year?

  • LaurelG

    I don’t come to the same conclusion. I see that Kris got a bounce from the win and had NOBO to bring his numbers up plus he has had a single out for nearly two months. Yes Adam as TFM, but it’s only been out for a few weeks. As stated, Adam and Allisons duet MV sold twice as much as Kris and Danny’s duet, yet those numbers are not being considered.

    Without album sales and MV factored in, it really is an incomplete picture and therefore no conclusions can be made from these numbers except how much Adam and Kris made post season on singles.

    I agree with this, undercooked, especially the part about the bounce at the end. One can’t make any definitive conclusions but, in my opinion, if you added everything up from Season 8, including album sales, MV, prior weeks, Adam would come out on top. Just my belief, based on Adam’s popularity right from the beginning and Kris’s dark horse status.

    I really don’t know why Brian Mansfield reported these numbers, though, since he ended up having to add a bunch of qualifiers to his post. It seems akin to sticking a large stick into a hornet’s nest just to stir things up.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    Hey lorismile, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with these numbers if the reflected the entire season. I think the issue with the numbers is that people cite them as the yardstick to meaure the popularity of an idolM. It’s incomplete data.

  • FolkFan

    Brian probably reported these numbers because he does get asked for off-chart totals for Idols (including for the AI8′ers Idol songs) and because Soundscan folks were willing to give them to him to publish. Really, any Soundscan numbers that we get are a gift. We have no right to any numbers, and the fact that Brian (and Ken before him) can print so many in the USA Today’s Idol column, and the fact that there are a few places where we can find leaked actual Soundscan numbers, is a very, very fortunate thing. This may not be the set of numbers that I most want (in-season sales, specifically for Season 7), but I’m always grateful to get any Soundscan numbers.

    I find these numbers interesting both because of what it may say about these particular Idols, but also about the new itunes strategy that was used this year. Unlike last year, all of the Idols had their itunes stuff up for a short time after the finale, and the top two had a lot of their itunes stuff up through the tour. Yeah, the analysis is a bit skewed because of the availability of the itunes and Walmart compilations, but this does indicate that some folks saw these guys on the Idol tour, on GMA, and in the press, and turned around and made some itunes purchases.

  • yinyang

    I can’t make any determination of what these numbers mean, since we don’t really know what they represent. So, I’ll consider them meaningless, and not get into the debate on what they mean.

    But, I think it’s important to remember that there are a lot of casual viewers of AI, and a lot of people who may buy post-Idol music who don’t watch Idol at all. And, any of the post-Idol releases needs to capture a lot of these people to be successful.

    I think, for the long-term careers that we all hope that the S8 people will have, it’s more important to look at what all happens with sales moving forward. Will their singles sell well? Will their albums sell well? Can they make money touring? That is what matters now, and we don’t have that data yet for any of the S8 people. They’re just getting started. We can look back a year from now and see how the year went for everyone, but we won’t have any answers quickly.

    I hope that they’re all successful.

  • JazzRocks

    LOL, every grandma and mom is getting SuBo for holiday. Is it gonna be like Groban’s christmas album last year?

    Well I’m a mom and a grandma and no one in my family would be silly enough to get me Susan Boyle’s CD. lol

  • Ratna12

    @lorismile:

    I agree completely with your little list, especially #3.
    Unfortunately I’m always in a defensive mode when I have to read any
    articles of Kris with the comments section. Kind of sad, really.

    As time goes on though, hopefully this will pass.
    Can’t wait for season 9 to begin, although I kind of feel sorry for the contestants; how can they be able to compete with the talent AND the considerable good looks of the Top 2 of the last 2 years.

    I think that the AI fans have been spoiled these past 2 years.

    Love you, Kris !!

  • 409musiclover

    Allison iraheta’s single was just available for download November 5. So 31,000 is great for 24 hours. Kris has had his single out. Adam has more than one single out. Allison will be iconic. Her album will not be available until December1.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    Allison iraheta’s single was just available for download November 5. So 31,000 is great for 24 hours

    From my understanding, the 31,000 is just the number of downloads after the AI finale and doesn’t include any numbers from her single. We won’t get her single numbers until next week. Ditto with FYE. No numbers for that single yet either. I suspect most of the 31,000 will include fan favs like Cry Baby. I suspect she would have sold alot more if they had made the duet with Lauper available for download. That was great.

  • abbysee

    Okay, I am bit late to this party but this seems to mean what. These are not the numbers from the season, which are the number we really want. These also might not include the new singles? So what is does mean is that these are No boundaries numbers plus whatever picking we could get after the season ended? So you might as well throw out Allisons numbers, because there wasn’t much to pick through. I frankly agree with whoever said that this was just some number thrown to either get us to debate and not really anything worth debating about. Hmmm.

  • dawnnoleen

    Remember Kris’s and Allison’s single came out at least a month before Adam’s. I think these numbers are meaningless right now as some of the singles got a lot of promotion and some did not. Let’s wait until after their albums come out before so we will have a better idea of how the three are doing. Personally I hope all three at least have a GOLD album and hopefully a Platinum.

  • smartalek

    Right now it appears as if none of the singles for the AI s8 idols are doing well on iTunes. Middling on the iTunes Hot 100 on the week your tune went on sale on iTunes is VERY bad IMO. iTunes is probably the most noticed place for young ppl buying music and if the songs don’t achieve top 10 and better yet #1, it reflects poorly on a) their original AI fan base’s ability to give them high initial sales and b) it suggests that non-idol watchers will not even realize the song exists and c) that the singles won’t be radio hits. This is a HUGE problem and I think part of the problem is with 19 Entertainment signing 4 of them thus splitting the marketing power. Or else 19 is just too plain cheap to give the idols effective promotion. And believe me single sales will reflect album sales. And a gold album without the single sales to match it will not lead to career success and may lead to them being dropped from their labels at the end of a year or two. For ex., probably the only reason David A. wasn’t dropped was b/c Crush was a very successful single and so his label intends to give him a sophmore album with more tunes like Crush. David C. on the other hand, sold a platinum album though his single sales essentially bombed after TofML. So he won’t be dropped yet either. But if his sophmore flops, he’ll be dropped before he knows what hit him. Jordin Sparks has had a lot of success with R&B singles so she has essentially made it. Her sophmore debut is laden with the types of singles that worked off of her first album and so her label will cont. to market her successfully. Daughtry took off right away with his album sales and single sales. My point is success has to happen right away or the idols are dropped period. Right now the single sales are just NOT there for S8 faves and that does not bode well for Adam, Kris, or Allison.

  • http://www.irish-wolfhounds.com Buderschnookie

    Right now the single sales are just NOT there for S8 faves and that does not bode well for Adam, Kris, or Allison.

    Do you even have iTunes single sales numbers on Adam?
    No.
    Are you counting singles sold through vendors other than iTunes?
    No.
    Do you even have album presale numbers on any of them?
    No.

    Bit premature to go making pronouncements.
    Come back next spring when we like, actually know things.

  • hypertwink

    I can see why he would assume half-empty since last year, iTunes showed the trend of the sales for the Davids. So while there are no definitive sales figures, it’s quite interesting to note that the S8 singles are not high up on the iTunes singles chart, unlike their predecessors who at least hit number 1 for a (half a) day or so.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    I can see why he would assume half-empty since last year, iTunes showed the trend of the sales for the Davids. So while there are no definitive sales figures, it’s quite interesting to note that the S8 singles are not high up on the iTunes singles chart, unlike their predecessors who at least hit number 1 for a (half a) day or so.

    I suspect Adam’s FYE charted higher on the first day or so of ITUNES, but the numbers were frozen for a couple of days due to glitches. So we will never know. I also don’t recall either David having their single for sell on their official website, so that could skew the numbers as well. Still not sure why AO opted to sell the single. Was it easier to access for fans outside the US? I also don’t think either Kris or Adam have the AI fanbase that either of the Davids had. But having said that, it sould like they both have created far superior debut albums than either of the Davids, based on the reviews I have read so far.

  • hypertwink

    I don’t know but didn’t FYE just debut a week ago on iTunes? I expected it to be higher on the chart.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    I don’t know but didn’t FYE just debut a week ago on iTunes? I expected it to be higher on the chart.

    Yeah, me too, but who knows? It was available on AO and Amazon for three or four days before it was available on ITUNES. From my understanding, the first few day downloads for any idol are made by the AI fanbase. Perhaps Adam’s fans purchased on AO and Amazon instead of waiting for ITUNES.

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