Brian Mansfield is back with American Idol Album Sales Numbers

green = Scotty, yellow = Kelly, orange = Carrie, blue = Adam

I was very happy to see that Brian Mansfield was back at USA Today giving us new numbers for American Idol album sales. We all hope you are feeling better! I can use this weeks numbers to interpolate for last week's missing numbers and my charts can remain complete! Haley Reinhart's "Listen Up!" is again out of the BillBoard Top 200, so I have dropped it out of my chart, leaving just four Idols remaining (excluding the Wal-Mart EP's), two that have had their albums out for 2 to 3 months and two that have had theirs out for well over 9 months. Leading the way as usual is Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" which sold 13K more units to reach 644K this week and to land at #26 on the chart after 12 weeks. Next is Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" with 7K more to reach 870K and land at #57 after 39 weeks. I am pretty sure Kelly will eventually break the million point with the staying power of her album. And speaking of the million sales point, the next winner on the chart broke that milestone a while ago, with Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" selling another 4K to hit 1.092M and land him #126 on the chart. The last Idol on the Top 200 is Adam Lambert with "Trespassing" which sold 3K more which was enough to keep him in the Top 200 for 10 straight weeks (#185) and put his total sales at 144K.


Now that the Season 11 Walmart EP recordings have been out for 3 weeks, I can make real charts with their numbers, especially since Brian has them all. First is a chart of the BillBoard 200 chart placement for the Top 5 finalist EP's:

and secondly is a chart with the total cumulative sales for each one of them:

As expected Phillip Phillips continue to lead the pack (8K this week at #42 for 42K total in sales), and the rest of them have consistently stayed in the same sales order for three consecutive weeks (which I think is pretty impressive!) Joshua Ledet and Skylar Laine are the two with the closest sales week after week, and their current totals are only 2K apart (19,000 for Joshua and 17,000 for Skylar.) Jessica Sanchez continues to remain in the Top 200 with sales of 3K (13K total, #165) and Hollie Cavanagh is again out of the BillBoard chart with sales of 1K and total sales of 7K.

American Idol Season 11 EP Sales - Week 2

Since USA Today American Idol data gatherer Brian Mansfield is still quite busy recuperating from his colon cancer surgery, I will have to be happy with the numbers from other sources. The easiest one is the BillBoard 200 where we can still track how the Season 11 EP sales are going as well as the rest of the Idols. First off on the EP front, the ordering of the Top 5 remains the same in BillBoard ranking with Hollie dropping off the Top 200 this week after being at #176 this week. The rest remain in the Top 200 although they all slip some in the rankings. Phillip Phillips continues to lead the way with barely a movement on the charts, dropping just one position from #25 to #26. With sales of 20K last week and HitsDailyDouble estimating about 14K this week he should be up to about 34K in total sales in two weeks. Joshua Ledet and Skylar Laine both saw their rankings drop slightly, Joshua from #59 to #74 and Skylar from #64 to #85. RoughStock lists Skylar at 6K in sales (14K total), so Joshua must be up to 15K or 16K in total sales. I was curious how well Jessica would do this week and her rank actually dropped more than the others, from #77 to #128. If Hollie was at #176 last week with 3K, Jessica must have sold more around 4K to end up at #128, so she should be around a total sales mark of 10K now. I am still somewhat surprised that Skylar has sold substantially more than Jessica, but that is probably due a lot to her performing country and being Jessica's musical style still being defined. I am very curious to see how well Jessica's first album will be received.

maroon = Scotty, green = Kelly, yellow = Carrie, orange = Adam, blue = Haley

As for the other American Idol contestants on the BillBoard chart, the most interesting person lately is Scotty McCreery. Even though his single "Water Tower Town" is not moving much on the country singles chart, his album "Clear As Day" has made an impressive reentry into the Top 100 on week #41. The only other non-Season 11 Idols in the Top 100 this week are the two biggest selling Idols ever, Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" which moved up nicely to #20 and Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" which also improved from #57 to #48. Adam Lambert's "Trespassing" held pretty steady, dropping only slightly from #165 to #171, but Haley Reinhart's "Listen Up!" again drops out of the Top 200.

Last Week's American Idol Album Sales Numbers

Get Well, Brian Mansfield!

It appears that the person at USA Today who posts the American Idol sales numbers is having colon cancer surgery, so that sounded like a pretty good reason for him not posting sales numbers last Wednesday. (Here's to Brian Mansfield who does such a great job over at USA Today supplying the Idolsphere with numbers. We love you and keep yourself healthy!) In any case he did submit numbers over the weekend (what a trooper!) so now I can fill out my little chart. My guess on numbers for last week's Walmart EP sales were pretty close although Brian's numbers had Phillip at 20K (I was using HitsDailyDouble's 19K), Joshua at 9K (I was guessing 8K), Jessica at 6K (I guessed 6K-7K) and Hollie at 3K as I predicted.

Here is my chart for the Idols in the BillBoard Top 200 (minus the Walmart EP's). Casey Abrams did drop out after just one week, but 5 other Idols remain on the chart:

(maroon = Scotty, green = Kelly, yellow = Carrie, orange = Adam, blue= Haley)

Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" was not too far behind Phillip's sales with 15K in sales (617K total, #35 on the chart) and Kelly Clarkson's 9 month old "Stronger" still managed to top all the other EP sales numbers as well (9K for 855K total and #57). Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" and Adam Lambert's "Trespassing" both were able to stay within the BillBoard Top 200, and even Haley Reinhart's "Listen Up!" remained with a nice increase to 3K in sales (44K total, #190). Including the EP's that makes 10 Idols in the BillBoard Top 200 and 6 in the Top 100.

American Idol BillBoard Rankings - July 13, 2012

First week EP sales (2011 = blue, 2012 = red)

For some reason Idol Chatter still has not posted album sales for the American Idol contestants, so I must instead find some more numbers to post for this week! Since this was the big release week for the Walmart EP's for Season 11, I thought I would sort the BillBoard 200 rankings for both Season 10 and Season 11 and come up with a sorted list:
1) #10 (2011) Scotty McCreery (40K in first week sales)
2) #24 (2011) Lauren Alaina (20K)
3) #25 (2012) Phillip Phillips (19K)
4) #31 (2011) James Durbin (15K)
5) #37 (2011) Haley Reinhart (14K)
6) #59 (2012) Joshua Ledet (8K)
7) #64 (2012) Skylar Laine (8K)
8) #77 (2012) Jessica Sanchez (??, guessing 6-7K?)
9) #176 (2012) Hollie Cavanagh (??, guessing 3K?)

Luckily Roughstock has the sales number for Skylar (8K) and since they also list Scotty at #103 with 4K in sales, we know Hollie must be quite a bit less than his 4K number (probably more like 3K). Plus since they list Chris Cagle at #58 with 8K we know Joshua is right there as well.

Overall I am sure the American Idol folks in general and Walmart as well were hoping to see more "McCreerian" size numbers, or to at least to see more than just Phillip ending up over 10K in sales (last year all of the Top 4 sold 14K or higher the first week and ended up in the BillBoard top 50.) However, Phillip's "Home" single has broken the Gold sales threshold of 500K downloads so that is a good sign for him, and shows that he is still selling fairly well.

Of course, any Idol sales news today is being overshadowed by the news that both Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are leaving the American Idol show for next season. I am sure after Season 10 they were hoping the show was back on an upswing and I am sure the Idol franchise was not so happy when the improvement did not continue. We will have to wait and see who ends up on the show next year. Adam Lambert? Mariah Carey? Hey, we all know Randy will still be there!

Casey Abrams' Debut Album Breaks BillBoard 100

 I was curious how well Casey Abrams' debut album would do and now we know the results. The self titled album came in at #87 with sales of about 4,000 in its first week. That makes it the third best selling Idol album this week behind Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" and Kellie Clarkson's "Stronger". Carrie sold 15K more albums to break the 600K threshold and land at #23 on the chart. Kellie continues her strong sales with 7K more to reach 846K total and land at #54, which continues to stay within the Top 75 since her release. There were still three other Idol contestants in the BillBoard Top 200, Adam Lambert whose "Trespassing" sold 4K to reach 135K in total sales and place #115 on the chart, Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" with 3K more to reach 1.079M (#133), and finally Haley Reinhart who climbs back to #189 with 2,000 in sales to bring her total to 41K units sold. I have the BillBoard Top 200 graphed below for the six contestants on the chart this week:

Casey is the blue square, but I am afraid he may drop off the chart in a couple weeks. Haley may also drop back off (the orange line), but Scotty and Adam look pretty safe for a few more weeks staying Top 200. Carrie and Kelly are pretty safe staying in the Top 100. I also have the latest total sales graph, but I have dropped Phillip and Jessica's compilation albums (as well as Kris Allen's latest) since they were pretty indistinguishable at the bottom. With the Season 11 EP sales numbers coming out next week that should be more interesting anyway.