It's Official, Scotty and Lauren both have big sales jumps!

With Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" album having its ridiculous sales jump this week, it is easy to miss how well Lauren increased in sales over Black Friday weekend as well. Her "Wildflower" album sales more than doubled to 18K in sales putting her at 162K in just 7 weeks. For today's graph I have therefore posted the first 12 weeks in sales for the winners and runners up for the past 3 seasons for fun comparison sake. "Wildflower" in 7 weeks is about where "Farmer's Daughter" was in 12 weeks, and about as much as "Live It Up" has sold since its release. Adam Lambert's "For Your Entertainment" took only 11 weeks to break the half million mark which would have his sales tower over all the other Idols here if Scotty McCreery was not there. Yes, then there is Scotty with sales of 587K in 8 short weeks. With over three more weeks in sales until Christmas Scotty and Lauren (and James too) still have plenty of the holiday shopping season to help boost there sales further. You can see in Kris and Adam's sales patterns when the holiday shopping stopped, so the Season 10 Idols still have a few more weeks of solid sales before they slow down in January. Now the question for Scotty is when (not if) he hits the platinum level of sales. I know better now, and I am not going to make a prediction! James' sales came in slightly higher than estimated at 28K which places him at #36 on the chart.

Oh my goodness... Where can we buy shares in Scotty McCreery?

Since it was late Tuesday afternoon, I knew it was time to check Hits Daily Double to see what their final estimates are for the Black Friday weekend. I knew Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" was going to do well, but this is just ridiculous! An 180% increase in sales in the amount of 90K units? Last week I thought he would drop out of the Top 15, and, well, he is not ranked 11 through 15, that is for sure... now he is at #9! With the HDD estimates giving him a good 7,000 in sales over Coldplay, that position is pretty safe, so he is back in the Top 10 on week #8, and back in #1 Country, comfortably outselling Taylor Swift!

Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" album did not make the Top 50, so her sales must be under 20K. James Durbin's "Memories of a Beautiful Disaster" did come in at #39 with about 26K in sales, but his number puts him amongst a crowded pack so his final BillBoard rank could go up or down by a bit. I also noticed that Brad Paisley's "This Is Country Music" is not in the Top 50 so it also must not have sold 20K units. That means "Clear As Day" should now be outselling "This Is Country Music". In fact, The Band Perry had another whopping sales gain themselves of almost 57K units (a 264% increase) so that shows that Brad is exceptionally good at picking hot selling tour mates. Perhaps the secret to album sales success is being picked to go on tour with Brad Paisley!

Wow, I Underestimated "Clear As Day" Sales... Again...

Okay, just last week I was guessing that "Clear As Day" would fall out of the Top 15 of the BillBoard charts. Can I take back that guess? HitsDailyDouble just released its Monday early estimates, and I was looking at positions 10 through 20 thinking, "Hey, where is Scotty, he didn't drop that low did he?" I saw Taylor Swift at #13 and looked below her and saw The Band Perry (#16), Lady Antebellum (#20) and Blake Shelton (#23) and kept looking lower for "Clear As Day". Surely, he did drop below the top 25, did he? But then I looked at the top 10, and there he was again staring at me at a lofty #7 with almost 48K in sales compared to 27K for Taylor Swift with only 38% of retailers reporting. When will I learn not to expect Scotty to sell like a normal human being? On my lovely chart I added 50K for Scotty for the week and 10K for Lauren, but I have no idea how much she will actually have in sales and how much over 50K Scotty will sell this week. It is better not to even guess anymore. On the early estimates James Durbin has a little over 12K in sales, so hopefully his final numbers will be significantly higher than that, but there is no way he will come close to Lauren's first week sales of 70K. I will just wait for tomorrow for the final HDD numbers and then the official SoundScan numbers on Wednesday to update my graph.

Last week I also said it would be a few weeks until 'Clear as Day" surpassed Brad Paisley's "This Is Country Music". Now I think it may very well be this week. Oh well, I can see Brad joking about it and having fun with it anyway, saying something about how Scotty and The Band Perry can help pay his Social Security.

Yup, there is Scotty right next to Adele. Two CD selling machines...

"Clear As Day" Officially Certified Gold, Back at #1 on Country Charts

Ho hum, another week another solid week of sales for Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" album. What I found much more unexpected than the official gold certification this week is the fact that "Clear As Day" was able to top all the other country albums in the whole country to again reach #1 on the Country BillBoard charts. That makes seven weeks the album has been out and it has been ranked #1 for 3 weeks, #2 for 3 weeks and now back to #1 for its seventh week. And no, the album is not even by Taylor Swift! Having an album go gold in seven weeks is impressive enough, but to stay in the top 2 of the country charts that entire period is also quite a feat. His overall BillBoard placement also improved by one to #13 this week, which means for 7 straight weeks he has remained in the top 15 for all albums. Note that neither Lee nor Crystal's albums last year were ever in the Top 15 (Lee debuted at #19 and Crystal at #28). With a bunch of new releases for next week I doubt "Clear As Day" will remain in the top 15, but his sales numbers should remain strong as all album sales should increase substantially during the Thanksgiving shopping week.

My 10K prediction for Lauren's "Wildflower" was again off by 1,000, with her sales actually being 9,000 for the week, about the same as Brad Paisley's "This Is Country Music". This places Lauren's total at 145K after 6 weeks, and interestingly places Brad's total at 544K. At the pace that both Scotty's and Brad's albums are selling, I could see "Clear As Day" outselling "This is Country Music" in a few weeks which would be an interesting turn of events for Brad. Not only has The Band Perry's album outsold Brad's, but Scotty's could as well, so he could be on tour with two younger acts who have both outsold his most recent album. Hey, isn't he supposed to be the headliner?

"Clear As Day" Sells Another 30K, Stays in Top 2 on Country Chart

After the CMA Awards last week I was curious who would benefit most from album sales the following week. It appears the answer is Lady Antebellum and... Scotty McCreery, of course! From the Hits Daily Double "Rumor Mill" they list both albums "Own The Night" and "Clear As Day" as the top two selling country albums at 30K to 35K each for the week. This week I am not going to be so conservative and put the bottom of that spread on my chart but instead picked a number in the middle, 33K. Why 33K? Well, if you add that to his current sales of 467K that would put him dead on at 500K in sales for a perfectly golden number. For Lauren this week I am adding another 10K, but I would not be surprised if she surpasses that. The extra 10K puts "Wildflower" at 146K in six weeks.

I also noticed I did not post the download sale stats from Idol Chatter this Wednesday, probably because they were posted earlier than usual and I missed them! Following the CMA Awards all three tracks by the Season 10 Top 2 kept very constant from the preceding week. Their two coronation singles sold the same number as the previous week, 7K for "I Love You This Big" and 5K more for "Like My Mother Does". They have both been very consistent sellers five months after their release. "The Trouble With Girls" had a 1K increase to 18K, but I think Idol Chatter is wrong with their total of 443K! It was at 137K last week and 18K more should bring it to about 155K. I am not sure where that 443K number came from since it is much too different to be a simple typo! Where did they find that extra almost 300K in sales?

"Clear As Day" Sales Top Predictions, Remain Over 40,000 for Week 6

On Friday I thought I would be conservative and pick the bottom of the Hits Daily Double estimates for Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" sales to make my graph for this week. Boy, I should really learn not to be so conservative! Scanned sales for "Clear As Day" ended up going up 4% this week (due most likely to Scotty's CMA appearance and weekend performances) to end up at 42,000, topping the 35-40K estimate. That means for the last three weeks he has had sales of 42,000 then 41,000 and now 42,000. Can you say consistent? What are the odds his sales would stay the same like this week after week? This drops the album to #14 on the overall BillBoard chart and keeps it steady at #2 on the Country chart for the third week in a row. Over the first six weeks the album has impressively remained in the top 10 for the first 4 weeks, and the Top 15 for weeks 5 and 6. Hey, that sounds like another graph:

The sales of Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" have also stayed steady with sales of 12,000 this week (1K over my own guestimate, and only a 1K drop from last week) to bring her to 136,000 after 5 weeks to stay in the Top 50 at #49 for the week. Last week she was at #7 on the Country chart after being #6 the week before, so after the CMA festivities it will be interesting to see where she ends up this week (Brian did not give Country chart numbers). Hits Daily Double had a bunch of country albums in the 10K to 14K range, so their rankings there could shift around a bit. I will have to wait for the RoughStock.com numbers to see where she ended up.

Next Tuesday James Durbin's new album "Memories of a Beautiful Disaster" will be released along with a ton of other albums hoping to cash in on the Black Friday sales the following weekend. It will be interesting to see his first week sales numbers. I do not think he has a shot of touching Scotty's sales numbers, but with the shopping weekend he may have a chance of coming close to Lauren's first week number of about 70,000. I have no idea how big his fan base is, so we will see.

Another week, and "Clear As Day" keeps on selling

Hits Daily Double released their predictions in their "Rumor Mill" for this week last night, and it was no surprise to see "Clear As Day" still perched in their list of 15 top selling albums (although it is at the very bottom of the top 15 this week). They are predicting another 35K to 40K in sales for Scotty McCreery's sixth week which should give him the #2 Country album for the third week in a row. If we add the bottom of the prediction to his existing 425K that puts him at 460K or 92% of the way to gold. That keeps him ahead of Adam Lambert's pace since week 6 for Adam was the week after Christmas. Scotty is still headed into the holiday shopping season so all bets are off on his total sales. Adding the 460K for "Clear As Day" with the 191K for his EP and the 42K for his iTunes compilation album puts him at 693K in total album sales which would place him #16 on the all time American Idol sales list just nudging out Elliot Yamin. It is hard to imagine how much further up that list he will move in the coming weeks.

Once again Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" is not on the top 15 list, but with her also being on the CMA Awards show (and my slight under of guessing her numbers for last week) I will estimate her sales will dip by the same ratio as Scotty did. So I am guessing 11K for her next week to bring her total to 135K after 5 weeks. That puts Lauren ahead of Crystal's sales after 6 weeks.
   

I also grabbed the track download numbers from Idol Chatter to update my download sales graph. This week shows another increase in sales for "Trouble With Girls", selling 17,000 downloads (up 22%) for a total of 137K. "I Love You This Big" added another 5,000 to reach 668K and "Like My Mother Does" added 5,000 to reach 325K. I am surprised "Georgia Peaches" has not reappeared back on the list.

Incidentally, "Wildflower" is still available at Amazon.com for only $4.99 as a download and now "Clear As Day" is available there for only $5.99. That means you can download both albums (24 tracks) for only $10.98 total. What are you waiting for?

It's "Clear As Day", Scotty McCreery #2 on Country Charts Again

Scotty needs to find room for another Gold Record

Hits Daily Double was right on target again with the official SoundScan numbers being released today for "Clear As Day" selling 41,000 units. However, I noticed a 1,000 difference between the total sales numbers that USA Today's Idol Chatter gave (424,000) versus Roughstock.com (425,000). Oh well, why quibble over rounding error? The bottom line is after five weeks "Clear As Day" has stayed in the top 2 of the BillBoard Country charts and is 85% of the way to gold (actually farther than that since they just count shipments.) I was also very impressed with my own predictions for "Wildflower" which sold 13,000 (I guessed 12,000) to end up at 124,000 in total sales.

Since the Hits Daily Double estimate was so accurate (as well as my own for "Wildflower"), my sales graph looks almost exactly the same as the one from Friday, so I thought I needed to post a different graph! But what should I do? But after I kept seeing Brad Paisley in promo photos for the CMA Award's tonight, I thought I would track the sales for the first 5 weeks of the top two selling albums released in 2011 by a male country artist. And what do you know, they are both going on tour together next year, namely Brad Paisley and Scotty McCreery. So I grabbed the numbers for "This Is Country Music" which was released May 23 (the week of the American Idol finale) to compare to Scotty's "Clear As Day" sales. After 5 weeks Brad had sold 302,000 albums, and now a few months later he is up to 524,000. This chart is not to downplay Brad who has done quite well with record sales (probably the biggest country male artist right now not named Jason Aldean), but simply to demonstrate how well Scotty is selling, and how well the both of them are doing together. So the tour next year could be called the "Golden Country Guys" tour, which is as good of a name as the "Camobunga! Tour".

Hits Daily Double Estimates 'Clear As Day' Sales Drop... Not at all?

Going from week #4 to #5 you would expect a normal album to lose a little bit of sales steam if there is no special promotion besides the latest single being spun more on radio and the latest music video continuing to be played on CMT. But Scotty McCreery never seems to follow "normal" sales patterns, and he does it again this week. Hits Daily Double predicts his "Clear As Day" album will sell another 40K to 45K more copies which is either a 5% drop or... a 5% gain? Huh? Are they reporting the estimate from last week? And this is before he is performing on the CMA Awards, not afterwards. Wow, this guy simply cannot stop selling! I updated my sales graph using the bottom of the estimate (40K) which puts him at 424K after 5 weeks. Amazingly this will still keep his sales slightly above Adam Lambert's curve two years ago, and Adam's 5th week was the week before Christmas when he sold 62K albums. (In Adam's 6th week he sold 17K.) Adam was at 417K after 5 weeks which was pretty impressive at that point and made his gold status pretty much inevitable. Scotty's 40-45K number also firmly plants him at #2 on the BillBoard Country Album chart behind Miranda Lambert's "Four The Record" (130-140K) since Toby Keith's "Clancy's Tavern" sales are estimated to drop to 27-30K. So that is three #1's and two #2's on the country album chart for "Clear As Day". That means after five weeks the lowest he has been on the country charts is #2! Can we say "wow" one more time?

For Lauren's "Wildflower" sales number on this graph, we know she is below both Lady Antebellum (27-30K) and Lil Wayne (24-27K) this week, and as a low ball estimate I put down 12K in sales (a 25% drop from her 16K this week) for her to add to my graph which would put her at 123K total after 4 weeks. That may not look so impressive compared to Scotty's numbers, but if you compare it to Martina McBride's "Eleven" which released on the same day, Martina only had sales of 66K after 3 weeks and will likely still stay under 80K after 4 weeks. That means Lauren's album will likely have sold 50% more albums than the current release by the incomparable, multi-platinum selling Martina McBride. "Wildflower" is on sale right now as a MP3 download for only $4.99 at Amazon MP3, so now is a good time to purchase it if you have not already. I bought it when it was $7.99 for the download, but I think the extra $3 was worth it to hear it a few weeks earlier.

Scotty and Lauren Download Numbers - November 2, 2011

Hurray more numbers from Brian at USA Today! Kelly Clarkson's "Mr. Know It All" is now just a stones throw away from 500K in downloads, but, hey, she is already a big star! I am much more interested in the newer folks from recent seasons, and that means Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina. Since Scotty's video for "The Trouble With Girls" came out last Monday, I was curious to see how its download sales would do, especially now that many Scotty fans already have copies of his whole album, "Clear As Day." It looks like there must be some folks who do not own it, since his sales for TTWG went up 61% to 14,000 which is also the first time since its first two weeks of release when TTWG has sold more than "I Love You This Big." Today total YouTube/Vevo views of the video are approaching a million after a little over a week version 4.5 million for ILYTB so it is definitely generating some traffic. However, TTWG in 9 weeks has sold 119K in downloads versus 661K for ILYTB and I doubt it will ever go Gold or come close to those kind of numbers. But who really cares since "Clear As Day" will definitely be certified Gold in just a few more weeks.

Speaking of album sales, SoundScan's final numbers came out and they were only 1K off from the Hits Daily Double numbers from yesterday so I am just leaving my old chart for now. The actual numbers were 42K for Scotty (384K total) and 16K for Lauren (111K total.) So the total for both of them is 495K instead of the 497K I reported yesterday. Hey, that is still close to half a million for the two of them.

Final Hits Daily Double Numbers Puts Scotty McCreery 3/4 of the Way to Gold

The final Hits Daily Double numbers just came out, and even though they are just estimates, I wanted to make another pretty graph! Plus both Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" and Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" had good numbers so I wanted to add them to my graph. More bars just make it more colorful! HDD is estimating 43K more for Scotty and 17K more for Lauren putting their total sales at 385K and 112K for Lauren. Since I like adding their numbers together, that is 497K which is close enough to gold for me! So Scotty and Lauren combined are golden. Hurray! Also Scotty's sales continue to keep up with Adam's which are impressive since Adam's 4th week was heading into the middle of December (i..e prime holiday sales time.) I believe Adam has one more big increase in his fifth week until his holiday sales start going down (he was at 355K after 4 weeks.) Lauren's third week numbers almost match Crystal's fourth week numbers so I think we will start seeing her sales out pacing Crystal from this point forward. I will finalize the numbers tomorrow, which will give me another reason to post again, hopefully with updated downloads numbers.