Hype at it’s best. Kris never stands a chance in most interviews and even less so now with all the recent happenings. Ellen’s recent interview was a good example.”

I agree with you. But don’t give up on Kris yet. Still too early in the game. Maybe you haven’t read this article http://topidol.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/kris-allen-might-be-the-most-likeable-american-idol-winner-ever/comment-page-1/#comment-15095

Hype at it’s best. Kris never stands a chance in most interviews and even less so now with all the recent happenings. Ellen’s recent interview was a good example.

I wish Adam well and just hope at some point he decides to base his future on his voice rather than his….as they say in sports… “off the field” antics.

Excellent point!!! But oh well, I think the non-Kris fans aren’t going to go for that argument either. So no point finding reasons for the 80K sale number. What does comfort me a little is knowing there is people out there who wasn’t able to buy his CD because it’s out of stock. So hope that coming weeks his sale number won’t be a drastic drop like in other seasons.

Well, I think we’ll have to check the Idol banner behind the contestants when the Season 9 promos start running. If we spot Adam’s big mug there front and center instead of Kris’s, then I think you might have a point!

(Seriously, not gonna happen.)

True – even Daughtry never got extra face time the next season over Taylor, despite his higher success than Taylor by the time the next season rolled around. However, the AI S9 commercials are featuring Feeling Good being sung, an Adam signature.

I think in terms of Idol fanbases they were about equal but Clay’s fans were just more passionate i guess. Oprah supported Ruben so that right there is huge. They were also both featured on the cover of Rolling Stone in separate issues and both performed on the AMA’s that year. Clay and Ruben both had hype but Clay had more. If you wanna compare it to the Kris/Adam thing this year though (i dont know why anyone would since it’s apples and oranges) Adam has eclipsed the amount of hype any idol contestant ever had and Kris’ hype was pretty much non existent. Its just perplexing how all of this panned out with Kris’ sales and yet he had the most votes of any idol finale.

Did this not apply to Clay and Ruben during season 2? I’m only familiar with season 8, but from what I’ve heard of season 2 people were saying Clay lost because he was gay, etc. and blamed Ruben’s mom’s power voting/campaign/etc for Ruben’s win. Didn’t Ruben debut with a strong first week of sales?

Ruben had the highest first week sales of any Idol winner.

LaurelG
11/26/2009 at 12:50 pm
Susan Boyle = Adam Lambert.

LOL. Yeah, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

The type of person who would buy the Hairy Angel is not the sort of music buyer RCA/19 is going after with respect to Adam. And conversely the type of person who is buying Adam’s album is probably not buying Subo’s too (well maybe for their gramma or cat-loving aunt). I tend to think what works on the Subo crowd (buyers of a bunch of covers) is not necessarily going to work on the Adam crowd (buyers of contemporary original music); I suspect one group is a little more into the music. Might be why Adam wasn’t on QVC pitching his album ‘ ¦ and never will be.

I wasn’t talking about demographics. Obviously Adam appeals to a different base than SuBo. Just saying the trajectories seem the same to me. But yup, we’ll agree to disagree.

fuzzywuzzy
11/26/2009 at 1:00 pm

I hope that you are being facetious, because if you honestly believe that the only difference between Adam and Kris as singers and musicians is that Adam can sing ‘higher’  and dress more ‘stylishly’  then you aren’t supporting your arguments with valid points. These two guys are entirely different artists. Enjoyment of music is subjective, and if reviewers and members of the media tended to enjoy Adam’s singing more than Kris, then it’s their opinion.

I just used the same descriptions you used with Adam when you were talking about how those would factor into what justified the “hype” for him. To me it seemed like you were implying all those things factored into the hype. The quote of mine you used for the response above was to point out that the stuff you used to factor into the hype for Adam were applicable to Kris too, the difference being their musical styles, performance styles and personality. Had you mentioned those I would have gladly added them too.

Pastor Pruitt of Danny’s church was instructing his parishioners publicly and on Twitter to vote for Kris because it was necessary to have a ‘believer’  win AI. It’s not unreasonable to assume that similar exhortations happened elsewhere among the fundamentalist community. Did some gays vote for Adam simply because he was gay? I’m sure that some did, but in reviewing gay Internet sites, it was very apparent that there was far more support for Kris among the LGBT community than Adam, therefore, likely net more votes for Kris from the gay community.

This is news to me. I’ve never heard of this Pastor and I never did research on LGBT sites to see who they were voting for. But this is interesting, though!

I agree that Kris won for a variety of factors: anti-Adam/gay vote, people who just like to regard AI as a ‘game show’  but have no intention of supporting anyone after the show is over, getting votes from supporters of other contestants as they were voted off because they may have liked Kris second/third/etc. best, massive power voting from residents of Arkansas, as well as people who liked Kris best of everyone. But we are talking about the reasons why someone with over 50 million votes (probably one of the largest vote totals ever) has sold the fewest CDs of any AI winner ever, and ultimately it boils down to only a very small proportion of the people who voted liking Kris’ singing enough to pay for his music after AI was over. Since all of the other factors I listed above apply to previous seasons of AI, the only factor specific to this year is the anti-Adam/gay vote, for which there is documented evidence. The AI viewing demographic is disproportionately represented by middle America and assuming that more of these viewers are conservative leaning and more religious is not unreasonable, so it is also not unreasonable (given the evidence) that the anti-gay vote was very impactful in the outcome of this year’s contest.

Kris has sold the fewest CDs ever? I thought we were only talking about first week sales? I hope that’s just a typo LOL

Re: power voting – hasn’t this been going on in all seasons of American Idol? Why are people making it out to be like Arkansas is so special and they have superior voting techniques? Didn’t other previous Idol winners have hometown advantages too?

As for the anti-gay voting thing, was this not used as an excuse during Clay and Ruben’s season 2? I’m only familiar with season 8, but from what I’ve heard of season 2 people were saying Clay lost because he got the anti-gay vote, etc. and blamed Ruben’s mom’s power voting/campaign/etc for Ruben’s win. Didn’t Ruben debut with a strong first week of sales?

WOW! I’m actually feeling a little speechless about what I think about this. On one hand I really don’t care because I think this proves that Jive is selling him as a new artist as opposed to the AI winner. On the other hand I think it also proves that TPTB want to rewrite AI history. Am I missing something? Am I wrong?

Who’d write those banner ads? I would think that it would be the record labels. So if it’s the labels, then that just reflects that RCA wants to use the Idol thing and Jive doesn’t.

If it’s 19, then you’re probably right. However, since it’s the albums that are being sold on Itunes, I think it would almost certainly be the record labels that would create the ads for those albums ….

Anybody know for sure who’s responsible for writing Itunes ads? It seems logical to me that it would be the label that create the album, and not your management, but that’s just a hunch, on my part.

So you think Kris might as well pitch himself to the niche groups because they are the ones interested in the music therefore they will generate sales, but you also think that there are a lot of people who like the singer-songwriter vibe these days (I take it you don’t think these are the same niche people), therefore he should concentrate on commercial appeal?

I meant two things (didn’t exactly say them, I see, but I meant them): One — that they might as well keep trying to pitch Kris to the Top 40 market, because at least in the below-top-10 level there *is* poppy soft rock/singer-songwriter stuff so there doesn’t seem to be a reason why he can’t have moderate success there (not Britney level — because I don’t see soft rock/singer songwriters in the top 10 for the most part.)

And, two — if the Top 40 pitch doesn’t work (and while i agree with you that his music certainly should have some shot there, I also don’t think it’s a sure thing), it won’t in the least be the end of the world, because I can see him successfully going after the niche market and, despite what Idol fans think, you don’t have to be a platinum seller in American Top 40/HAC or country in order to have a great career.

I went to check out the itunes banner on Pop for Kris and it doesn’t even mention American Idol! Can someone tell me if it did last week? I don’t think it has changed. BUT, Adam’s does! It says American Idol favorite! WOW!

On the other hand I think it also proves that TPTB want to rewrite AI history. Am I missing something? Am I wrong?

Well, I think we’ll have to check the Idol banner behind the contestants when the Season 9 promos start running. If we spot Adam’s big mug there front and center instead of Kris’s, then I think you might have a point!

(Seriously, not gonna happen.)

Was there promotion for their current albums? No, or at least, minute compared to say, Kris’s promotion of his album prior to its release.

Is this said in an ironic sense? Sorry, I admit I’m lazy and skip most very long posts. You can’t seriously mean Adam on Oprah, AMA, The Letterman Show, The Early Show got less promo than Kris. Cause that just ain’t true.

Susan Boyle had QVC and the Today show. Plus lots of well placed ads.
So she probably had less promo than Adam. I’d agree with that.

Wait I just remembered, Kris did get to present at the AMA and had the gig at the football parking lot. So yeah, he did have way more promo than Adam. Actually, I don’t think Kris would have outsold Adam even with the promo but let’s be fair about who got the lion’s share. It’s kind of obvious.

Well so did Kris. Didn’t he get praise from Randy Travis, Quentin Tarantino, Smokey Robinson, Jamie Foxx, etc as well? Wasn’t he described by Ricky Minor as a ‘quiet storm’ ? Kris, too, was praised for his musicianship and his artistry. The only difference is he doesn’t sing as high as Adam can sing, and I guess he doesn’t dress as stylishly LOL I don’t know. What does that mean then? If you’re a stylish dresser or a big belter this warrants the hype?

I hope that you are being facetious, because if you honestly believe that the only difference between Adam and Kris as singers and musicians is that Adam can sing ‘higher’  and dress more ‘stylishly’  then you aren’t supporting your arguments with valid points. These two guys are entirely different artists. Enjoyment of music is subjective, and if reviewers and members of the media tended to enjoy Adam’s singing more than Kris, then it’s their opinion.

I dunno, I don’t think there’s a large group of fundamentalist voters out there. But maybe that’s just me. I think they’re a loud minority, but they are still a minority. I don’t think they’re necessarily numerous. They were probably voting a lot because of their convictions, but I don’t think there’s necessarily a lot of individuals who bothered to do this, just as it’s also reasonable to speculate that a portion of people who voted for Adam voted for him because he is gay. Is there a large number of these people who were willing to vote as hard as these fundamentalists? Who knows?

Pastor Pruitt of Danny’s church was instructing his parishioners publicly and on Twitter to vote for Kris because it was necessary to have a ‘believer’  win AI. It’s not unreasonable to assume that similar exhortations happened elsewhere among the fundamentalist community. Did some gays vote for Adam simply because he was gay? I’m sure that some did, but in reviewing gay Internet sites, it was very apparent that there was far more support for Kris among the LGBT community than Adam, therefore, likely net more votes for Kris from the gay community.

Does it mean that just because Kris was the second favorite and they ultimately voted for him that they are now automatically part of the core fanbase and are thus expected to participate in first week sales? Probably not. I think they will factor into the weeks that follow, though.

Kris also had more casual viewer votes, IMO. People who watched Idol in passing, who aren’t really invested in Idol and maybe caught one performance (I’m referring to ‘Heartless’  in particular). These people aren’t going to participate during first week sales either.

But that said, I certainly don’t discount the part of Kris’s finale votes that were people who voted for other reasons other than liking his music. I just don’t think that there are as many of these people as you think.

I agree that Kris won for a variety of factors: anti-Adam/gay vote, people who just like to regard AI as a ‘game show’  but have no intention of supporting anyone after the show is over, getting votes from supporters of other contestants as they were voted off because they may have liked Kris second/third/etc. best, massive power voting from residents of Arkansas, as well as people who liked Kris best of everyone. But we are talking about the reasons why someone with over 50 million votes (probably one of the largest vote totals ever) has sold the fewest CDs of any AI winner ever, and ultimately it boils down to only a very small proportion of the people who voted liking Kris’ singing enough to pay for his music after AI was over. Since all of the other factors I listed above apply to previous seasons of AI, the only factor specific to this year is the anti-Adam/gay vote, for which there is documented evidence. The AI viewing demographic is disproportionately represented by middle America and assuming that more of these viewers are conservative leaning and more religious is not unreasonable, so it is also not unreasonable (given the evidence) that the anti-gay vote was very impactful in the outcome of this year’s contest.