My Last Pre-Season 12 Post: There's Kelly Clarkson again!

blue = WFTSOTM, green = CU BA, orange = KC GH

With Season 12 of American Idol starting tonight with Mariah Carey, Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj on board, it is fitting to see the BillBoard chart led by Season 11 winner, Phillip Phillips. Interestingly, a year ago (before Season 10 was starting) Kelly Clarkson was leading Season 10 winner Scotty McCreery on the BillBoard chart, and this year Phillip is leading all Idols... with Kelly right behind him! Last year Kelly's "Stronger" was #14 when "Clear As Day" was #34, and this year, Phillip's 'World From the Side of the Moon" is #14 and Kelly's "Greatest Hits" is as #23. In fact "Stronger" is still back in the Top 200 at #198. So now my BillBoard ranking chart is missing Scotty McCreery (who had been on my chart since "Clear As Day" was released October 2011), but Kelly has pretty much stayed on the BillBoard 200 for all that time as well. Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" has dropped to #40 on this its 37th week out, its lowest chart position to date, which shows how well it has held out since its release eight months ago. Staying Top 40 for 8 months is pretty impressive.

Brian's Idol chatter list has the latest sales tallies for Phillip, Kelly, Carrie, Scotty ("Clear As Day", not the Christmas album), Casey James and Casey Abrams. Phillips total is now well over 600K but his sales are starting to slow. Its sales trend is going to collide soon into "Blown Away" and "Clear As Day" if it continues slowing unless he gets some more promotion with the new season of Idol starting up tonight. Phillip's album is already the 4th highest selling of any American Idol albums released in the past two years, and hopefully it can reach the platinum success of "Clear As Day", "Stronger" and "Blown Away".

It will be curious to see what all former Idols will appear on the show to help promote their albums. Colton Dixon's "A Messenger" is being released in just a couple weeks (January 29) so hopefully he gets to show up to perform something. Hopefully Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina's sophomore albums will also be released (and Jessica Sanchez's debut) in the next few months so they can appear and plug their albums too.