Don't Let Failure Get You Down...Ever!

Have you ever done something you were so confident about but then failed? Really miserably?

Trust me, it happens to everyone. In fact, quite recently it happened to me. I decided to do something I was certain I would be successful in, but then I had to face defeat and ended up up failing.

Ouch. It hurt. A lot. It took me a long time to get over it. But you won't believe how much I've learned.

So often, we're all caught up in our own selves that we tend to get overconfident. The result? It hurts even more when you crash and burn.

What I'm trying to say is that every failure is a stepping stone. I am aware that this has been quoted over and over for the past hundred years, but it's true. And now I can actually relate to it. Would I ever have believed this saying before a failure? Nope.

It stings like anything when you falter. Your ego is bruised, your confidence is shattered, and you just feel awful. But you know what you need to do? GET BACK UP! Dust off your clothes, and try again. If you believe that you can, you will. Sure, you might not always win, but the experience will help you do even better the next time.

My recent failure really taught me that there's a world outside that's competitive, fierce and will not care if you fall. It's the sad truth. But you have to let that flame keep burning inside of you and keep fighting to make your dreams come true. It might take a lifetime, but if you keep on working hard at what you want, you'll get it.

When I failed, I felt for a few days that the world was over and that I was a pathetic loser. Soon, I saw the greater picture- no matter what people say or do, they can't take away your spirit. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. You have to accept and learn from your mistakes and Keep. Moving. Forward.

The only failure in life is the failure to try. Don't give up. Ever.

Have a great week!

Weekly American Idol Album Sales: Kellie and Carrie stay Neck and Neck in Sales

BillBoard album rank: lt blue = Kelly, orange = Carrie, green = Phillip, dk blue = Colton

Everyone knows when you talk about the most successful American Idol winners there are really only two names, and there they are again this week with almost identical sales, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood.  Now that Phillip Phillip's "The World From the Side of the Moon" is starting to drop in sales (#55 with 9K in sales for 844K total), the two Idols who remain in the BillBoard Top 50 albums are none other than Kelly and Carrie, sitting together at #42 and #43 both with 10,000 in sales. This is the third week in a row the two Idol winners have been within two chart positions of each other, and in 6 of the last 7 weeks they have been within 3 chart positions of each other. They are like Idol sisters joined at the hips! The only other Idol in the BillBoard 200 is Colton Dixon's "A Messenger" which drops to  #127 with 4K in sales. Still that marks 12 weeks for his album in the Top 200 chart, a good feat for a Christian album.

This week another Idol winner will jump back on the charts with Fantasia's "Side Effects of You" estimated to sell about 90K to 95K. Then this coming Tuesday, April 30, of course, marks the release of the next Idol alum album, Season 10 runner up Jessica Sanchez's, "Me, You & The Music". Released nearly a full year after the end of her season of American Idol, well over a month after her "Tonight" performance this season and yet weeks before her "Glee" appearances, I am curious what kind of first week sales numbers it will see. The official numbers for its first week sales will not be available for about two weeks, but we should see some HitsDailyDouble estimates by May 1 or May 2.

American Idol Top 4 - Morning After Numbers Review

Now that we are down to four very strong vocalists left in Season 12 of American Idol, I was curious if the voting on DialIdol would become more complacent. In reality not only did the total number of votes increase somewhat (from  under 19K to almost 20K this week), but the number of busy signals jumped up by over 50% (from 192 to 320) :

And after Angie Miller had repeatedly been the contestant earlier on with the most busy signals, that trend has now changed to be Kree Harrison two weeks in a row. I am curious how accurate of a measure of popularity that is now, however, after Kree had the highest number last week but was still in the Bottom 2. If we compare this week's raw vote numbers to last week's, the contestant who may have the most to worry about may be Candice Glover. Last week Candice received about 3.8K total votes and had the third highest number of votes after Angie and Kree Harrison. This week Candice is dead last with less than 2K votes and 3+5=8 whopping busy signals. In comparison Amber Holcomb received about 3.4K total votes with 9+4=13 busy signals. It is pretty obvious that Angie and Kree are the two contestants who have the most DialIdol using fans, but after Kree's Bottom 2 result last week (with strong DialIdol numbers) they may be getting less and less reliable as an indicator.

My other favorite numbers to check are the WhatNotToSing.com web ratings of the performances. If we compare the contestants using the preliminary ratings from the performances from last night, it would seem that Amber is the contestant most in jeopardy despite of (or perhaps because of) the very generous praise heaped on her by all the judges. I personally like Amber and think she has a lot of potential, but I still do not understand why the judges give her so many over the top, undeserved compliments when they should realize it does not really help her. If we average the two solo performances for each contestant we can rank them:

1) Angie Miller : 81 + 59 = 140 => 70 average
2) Candice Clover : 62 + 54 = 116 => 58 average
3) Kree Harrison : 56 + 45 = 101 => 55.5 average
4) Amber Holcomb: 54 + 28 = 82 => 41 average

If we look over the WhatNotToSing average ratings for their solos for the past three weeks we see some striking trends:

Despite the "growth" the judges like to talk about for Amber, the contestant who is really enjoying the "growth" trend right now is Angie, not Amber. All the other ladies are now in a declining trend. Before Lazaro's departure they all sounded so good in comparison, but now that he is gone, (as well as Janelle who had a nice spark of personality despite her vocals not being as strong) the remaining ladies are really not all that exciting, and Angie may be the most "entertaining" one left.

The only contestant I think is totally safe from the Bottom 2 tonight is Angie, but I have a sneaky feeling (like many people on the Internet) that nobody on the show has to worry about being eliminated tonight.

American Idol Top 4 Weekend Betting Odds

The betting odds are finally out for the American Idol Season 12 Top 4, and Candice Glover for the first time ever is the leading favorite at 3/2. With Kree Harrison sitting in the Bottom 2 with ousted Janelle Arthur, Candice now stands as the most likely to win with Kree still #2 behind her at 7/4 and Angela Miller close behind at 9/4. The long shot is definitely now Amber Holcomb at 15/1. If any girl is eliminated next week it will likely be either Amber or Angie, but I am guessing nobody goes home this week. It will be interesting to see who they have performing last, since that contestant is usually safe and it was Amber last week.

By Top 4 week the last couple years (Scotty and Phillip's years) it was pretty obvious there were "guys to beat" but this year is definitely the closest competition among the past three years. Last year it became clear that no matter what or how he performed on the show Phillip was going to keep cruising through the competition, and two years ago, the odds makers knew either Scotty or James were going to take it all the way. This year is an almost 3 way tie (sorry, Amber), and it is still way too early to predict much of anything.

American Idol Album Sales: Latest Winners Keep Selling!

BillBoard Album ranking: orange = Carrie, lt blue = Kelly, green = Phillip, dk blue = Colton

This edition of the weekly American Idol album sales post is brought to you by the same winners who keep appearing on the performance shows. Kelly Clarkson may have had some weird looking makeup on the performance show a couple weeks ago, but that did not keep her album sales from jumping (Bad makeup cannot disguise a great voice!) Her greatest hits album saw a jump in sales to 14K units to land at #30 on the BillBoard charts and bring its total sales to 379K. Not to be outdone, Season 4 winner Carrie Underwood actually outsold Kelly with 15K in sales of "Blown Away" which landed at #28, to put its total past 1.4M (1.402M to be precise) and take it off my lovely chart below. I could increase the Y axis label to 1.5M but not even Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" sales will get that high:

Scotty, of course, performed on the same appearance show on April 11 as Kelly, but unfortunately he does not have a current album to promote, so instead people could only buy up digital downloads of his single "See You Tonight" which amounted to a very solid 46K in one week sales. And his 1 1/2 year old debut album "Clear As Day" actually sold another 2,000 units to reach 1.166M in total sales. There rarely seems to be a week he does not sell 1,000 copies of his album.

The two guys from last year with albums also continue to do well. Season 11 winner Phillip Phillips hangs on at #50, to mark his 21st consecutive week in the BillBoard Top 50 as he sold another 10K units of "The World from the Side of the Moon".  With total sales of 835K and his single "Gone, Gone, Gone" still improving in airplay, he still has a good chance to seeing the album hit platinum.  Colton Dixon's "A Messenger" has seen its sales jumping up and down, first in response to Angie Miller's performance of one of his songs, and then with his own appearance on Idol. His album sales are now starting to slow back down, but with sales of 5K he remains in the Top 100 at #91 and total sales of 88K. He should easily surpass 100K which is a pretty strong number for a Christian artist.

American Idol Season 12 Top 5 : Morning After Numbers

I was curious if Season 12 "post Lazaro" would still have the same voting activity after the last male contestant left  the show. In terms of total votes cast on DialIdol from last week and this week, the total number actually slightly increased,  from 18.66K to 18.89K. But interestingly with about the same number of votes over 10 instead of 12 phone lines, the number of busy signals actually dropped down, from 313 last week to only 192 this week. And this week Angie Miller did not have the highest number of busy signals, it was Kree Harrison this time with 43 + 26 = 69 total busy signals. Angie was just barely in second with 44 + 12 = 56, with Amber Holcomb almost tied with her at 32 + 32 = 55 busy signals. Here is my graph of the busy signal counts since Top 10 week. Angie (red column) has always been one of the two contestants with the most busy signals, but for the second week in a row now she has been #2 (she was behind Lazaro last week!) The yellow column notes the number of busy signals for the other contestant in the Top 2 busy signal receivers for the week. Note that Top 6 week was the first one with two lines for each contestant.

Candice Glover again only received 9 + 0 = 9 total busy signals, much less than her 31+37 = 68 last week despite having over 3.8K DialIdol votes this week compared to 3.2K last week. And Janelle Arthur received only 2 + 1 = 3 busy signals out of her 2K votes for the week (compared to a whopping 7 busy signals with over 3K DialIdol votes last week.) With her 2K total votes, Janelle had the lowest number of DialIdol votes this week whereas Amber and Lazaro had fewer total raw votes last week. That cannot be good news for Janelle!

The WhatNotToSing ratings does not bring Janelle any good news either. Without Lazaro to cement down the basement of bad performances, Janelle's ratings of 36 and 40 do not look too promising in comparison. All the other contestants mixed up stronger and weaker performances. If we average the two performances for each contestant:

1. Candice: 74 + 65 = 139 => 69.5 Average
2. Kree: 68 + 63 = 131 => 65.5 Average
3. Angie: 73 + 51 = 124 => 62 Average
4. Amber: 70 + 41 = 111 => 55.5 Average
5. Janelle: 40 + 36 = 76 => 38 Average

If we compare this to the averages for last week:

This is not looking to good for Janelle, especially not performing second.

Album Review: Michael Bublé: To Be Loved (2013)

With his distinct, old fashioned-yet current style, Michael Bublé is one of modern music's greatest voices. The Canadian pop-jazz crooner is known for his old-school sensibilities, while at the same time blending modern sounds with classic tunes.

To Be Loved is Michael Bublé's eighth studio album. Like all of his releases, To Be Loved is largely a collection of covers of classic standards, with a few original songs thrown in. By the numbers, there are ten cover songs and four originals. Two major stars feature on the album, actress Reese Witherspoon (in a very rare singing role) and singer Bryan Adams.

Following up his multi-platinum 2011 album Christmas, To Be Loved is just as you'd expect- heartfelt, sincere, fun and wonderfully performed.

Below is the track-by-track review of the album ( * denotes original song)

1. "You Make Me Feel So Young" (Frank Sinatra): As cheerful and positive this song is, I thought it was an odd choice to open the album, since it's a song from 1946 and the arrangement is true to the original. Still, Bublé's performance is impeccable, as always.

*2. "It's A Beautiful Day": I've already reviewed this song in detail, so you can check it out here. It stands out as one of the best songs on the album and rightfully so, as it's the lead single. Great original song and sure to be a hit (it already is)

3. "To Love Somebody" (The Bee Gees): One of my favorite songs found its way onto this album! I love this version- everything from the vocals to the arrangement sound new and contemporary, which is good since I've heard a million artists sing this song. This is definitely one of the best versions of this song I've heard.

4. "Who's Loving You" (The Miracles): I'll be honest- I've never heard this song before, so this was a great way to be introduced to it. Like I said, Buble makes it sound new and contemporary.

5. "Something Stupid" (featuring Reese Witherspoon) (Frank and Nancy Sinatra): Reese Witherspoon? Really? Yes! Really! I love this version so much! Reese Witherspoon isn't the greatest singer, but her vocals are soft, breathy and simple, just how this song needs it to be. She isn't unnecessarily pushed to the forefront of the song, and that's a very good decision. One of the highlights of the album.

6. "Close Your Eyes" (Frank Sinatra): Michael Buble is clearly a big fan of Sinatra, as we can see by the number of Sinatra covers on here. This version is true to its roots and Bublé sounds great. Too bad it's not my kind of song.

*7. "Close Your Eyes": The second original song, this is a classic Bublé ballad much like Home and Lost from his previous albums. It's inspiring and a really great listen.

*8. "After All" (featuring Bryan Adams): I loved that Bryan Adams was a guest on this song. The duo blend perfectly together. "After All" is an upbeat love song, and it really suits both singers really well. Another one of my favorites on this album.

9. "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" (with Naturally 7) (Lulu Belle and Scotty): I've always loved this song, so having it on this album is great. It's barebones, featuring real instruments and great backing vocals (courtesy Naturally 7). As always, Bublé makes it his own and injects enough smoothness and soul to really make this song fresh.

10. "To Be Loved" (Jackie Wilson): I thought this was an original, but then I found out it's originally sung by Jackie Wilson. This is of course, another love ballad. Its really good and one of my favorites on the album. Bublé really

11. "You've Got A Friend In Me" (Randy Newman): If you're as big a Disney-Pixar fan as I am, chances are you've seen Toy Story, from which this song is taken. I'm so happy that this was selected- it's a relatively current song (compared to most of the others on this album). As used as I am to Randy Newman's distinct style, I think Bublé put a really great spin on this classic. Another highlight.

12. "Nevertheless (I'm In Love With You)" (featuring the Puppini Sisters) (Bing Crosby): I've never heard this song before, so it was nice to listen to. Of course, it's possibly the oldest song here (1931) and the age definitely shows. But oh well, I'm okay with it. I just found it a little boring and loungy.

*13. "I Got It Easy": The final original song on the album, and one of the standouts in terms of Bublé's vocal performance. With a host of background singers and triumphant instrumentation- this song is soaring and amazing. I would love to see this performed live sometime.

14. "Young At Heart" (Frank Sinatra): Of course Bublé would end with a Sinatra standard. It's heartfelt and true to the original. A great version.

I usually dislike albums with too many covers, but Michael Bublé's To Be Loved is an exception. The ten cover songs are all brilliantly done and Bublé really puts his own stamp on them. The four original songs are all really good and very well written. One problem I have with this album is that some of the song choices are dated and will mostly only appeal to people who are familiar with the originals. The addition of Reese Witherspoon and Bryan Adams are both highlights of the album and both their songs are instant favorites with me.

I've always idolized Michael Bublé, from his style to his music, but despite my obvious partiality, this album is really good. Like really good. I predict big sales for this (his Christmas album sold 7 million copies worldwide). My advice: BUY THIS NOW! No matter what your age group, there's something for everyone to enjoy in this album! It's a great way to introduce your kid to the classics and for older listeners, it's a fantastic trip down memory lane. And how can you not like that voice? One of the best albums of 2013 so far.

Best Songs: "It's A Beautiful Day", "To Love Somebody", "Something Stupid", "After All", "To Be Loved", "You've Got A Friend In Me", "I Got It Easy"

RATING: ★★★★★

American Idol 2013: Ranking The Top 5

Well, we're halfway through with the finals of American Idol Season 12, so obviously, it makes sense to look at where this season's Top 5 ladies stand. It's been a pretty unique but predictable season, with every elimination so far being a guy. Sorry, guys, it's the season of the ladies!

Idol's Fierce Five

5. JANELLE ARTHUR Quite honestly, I'm surprised Janelle's made the Top 5. I've never been her biggest fan and I'm yet to be blown away by a performance of hers. I still find her overrated and get the impression that she's trying too hard. That said, Janelle is good. Just not good enough to make the Top 3 this season.

 

4. AMBER HOLCOMB I haven't changed my perspective on Janelle, but I have to admit, Amber has grown on me. I think her performances in recent weeks were really good- but of course, not even near as good as my Top 3 picks. One thing I love about Amber is that I always hear a little Whitney Houston in her voice. And that kind of talent is rare. If only the producers would stop pimping her so. It's clear they want to see her in the Finale for whatever reason.

3. ANGIE MILLER First of all, can I say just how disappointed I am in Angie? She blew us away in Hollywood Week, and was hailed and the next big thing. But I just don't understand what she's trying to do. It looks like she's lost her way in recent weeks and she's just struggling to get by week after week. Another issue I have with Angie is that she isn't sticking to one particular genre. It's good to show your versatility, but tackling everything from Christian music to edgy rock is just going to confuse people..Angie really needs to do something epic this week if she still wants to be in the Finale. And I want to see her in the Top 2 because she's so incredibly marketable and could make a big splash on the music scene.

2. KREE HARRISON Kree is, as always, genuine, lovable and just really respectable. I admire her poise and grace (although some say she lacks personality) and week after week she comes out on stage and kills it. If she keeps doing what she's doing, I think she could win this season.

1. CANDICE GLOVER Candice is amazing. She's quietly crept past Angie and Kree and is now possibly the one to beat this year. I think we could all attribute it to her unbelievable performance of "Lovesong" this past week. It was fierce, arresting and commanding. I didn't even know she had that in her. Winner? Maybe!

So there you have it. This competition has been turned around completely. Personally I'm just glad that after SIX years, we're finally going to have a female winner! Not just that, but this will be only the second female Top 2 since Season 3 back in 2004! Also, this is the first ever Top 5 to be all-female. Heck, it's the first ever Top 5 to be of a single gender! Really cool.


So which one of the ladies do YOU think has what it takes to win? Who are you rooting for?

[Random plug: If you enjoy reading my blog, Follow it! (Click  "Join This Site" on the right!) Also, find me on Twitter! It's a fun place!]

American Idol Season 12 Betting Odds - Five Ladies Remain!

It did not take the betting lines long to decide on the initial odds on the final five contestants on American Idol Season 12. With Angie Miller's slip into the "Middle 2" last night she has finally been knocked out of the odds on favorite position to land as the #3 favorite at 9/4 odds. Despite the huge amount of praise Candice Glover received this week she is not the leading favorite, though, but she did improve to 2/1. The leader now is Kree Harrison at 8/5. In honor of Lazaro's elimination, I have changed my trend graph to now be lines so it is easier to compare the five remaining ladies:

Janelle is surprisingly still the long shot at 15/1 even after she was in the "Middle 2" last night while Amber Holcomb was in the "Bottom 2". Amber is still the second least favored contestant at 12/1 and I cannot see her or Janelle's odds improving enough to get either of them to be among the Top 3. It has now become a very close contest between Kree, Candice and Angie, and whereas I believe none of those three will disappear in the next two weeks, they are all so close now that it does not take much for one to shift much in front of the other. In reality, however, I could see all three of them having albums released which would target very different musical audiences. They all still have a few more weeks to show us what they can do to try to win over some more votes.

American Idols on BillBoard Album Chart

I believe Brian over at Idol Chatter was so relieved that Lazaro was finally "released" from the current season of American Idol that he forgot to post any updated sales numbers for Idol albums. So instead I will just have to be happy with BillBoard 200 album chart numbers for this week. I was pleased to see that Crystal Bowersox's "All That for This" managed to stay on the BillBoard 200 for a second week, so that I could add a real line on my graph for her (darker blue line). She fell from #71 last week to #126 this week and I am not sure if she will last a third week or not. Colton Dixon's "A Messenger" (green line) should be safe on the chart for another few weeks after his Idol performance a few weeks ago, but he also fell from his nice #41 spike last week to #70 this week. With her ACM show appearance, Carrie Underwood was the only Idol to positively move up the chart this week with "Blown Away" (light blue) improving from #55 to #44. Kelly Clarkson also appeared and her Greatest Hits album (magenta line) held steady slipping just barely from #42 last week to #46 this week. The only other Idol on the BillBoard 200 chart is Phillip Phillips with "The World From the Side of the Moon" (orange line) , but with his Idol appearance being a month back his sales are starting to slowly slip again as he moves from #23 to #38.

The next Idol with a new album coming out is Jessica Sanchez's "Me, You & The Music" which arrives in less than two weeks on April 30. Let's hope Interscope gives Jessica some promotion on that album. I will also be curious to see how Scotty McCreery's new album does on its upcoming release. If the response to his first single "See You Tonight" is any indication, he may have another very successful album on his hands. Luckily UMG Nashville already knows Scotty is a money machine so they are sure to help promote his album.

American Idol Top 6 Results : America Actually Got it Right!

I was a little scared hearing there were 34 million votes cast last night (a lot more than the 25 cast last week) and hearing the results might be "shocking". But the amazing truth was that Lazaro Arbos actually received the lowest number of votes and was not saved by the judges. That means we no longer have to hear him destroy songs on the show and we now have an all female top 5. The pairings of the Top 2, Middle 2, and Bottom 2 actually fit the "What Not To Sing" web ratings pretty well too.
Candice Glover and Kree Harrison have all the top 4 web ratings, and Lazaro definitely has the bottom 2 web ratings. The other three ladies: Amber Holcomb, Angie Miller and Janelle Arthur mix their ratings up a bit. So I will average the pairs of ratings for all six contestants and sort to rank them all:

1) Candice : 95, 85 = 90 average
2) Kree: 75, 65 = 70 average

3) Amber: 60, 50 = 55 average
4) Angie: 60, 35 = 47.5 average
5) Janelle: 50, 40 = 45 average

6) Lazaro: 15, 0 = 7.5 average

But if we look at Amber, Angie and Janelle, their average preliminary ratings are very close together. There is only a 7.5 point difference between Amber and Angie, and only 2.5 points between Angie and Janelle. Compare that to the 20 point difference between Candice and Kree, the 15 points between Kree and Amber or the whopping 37.5 point difference between Janelle and Lazaro. If we graph them out the differences are pretty apparent:

Here we have the contestants sorted using the average WNTS web rank for this week. Last week Candice was not in the Top 3, but was orange for being the "middle 2", but she is back green being Top 2 this week. Kree is now the only contestant who has always been in the top group, being in the Top 3 last week and the Top 2 this week. Despite being ranked #3 by web rating, Amber has now been in the Bottom 3 once, the middle 2 last week and the Bottom 2 this week. Her chances of ending up in the Top 3 finalists seem pretty low. This was Angie's first week not being in the top grouping as she now is in the middle 2. Janelle actually improved since she was Bottom 2 last week but was in the Middle 2 this week. All the ladies except for Kree have moved about within the groupings, so it is hard to predict what will happen with them from week to week.

But at least we know what happened to Lazaro! The only successful male Idol on the stage this week was the winner from Season 10 two years ago, and frankly he seems incredibly different from that young fellow from 2011. The Scotty McCreery two years ago was a somewhat awkward high school boy with a rich, country voice, plenty of charm, and a lot of potential. Tonight there was a well styled, bulked up, college student comfortably strolling across the Idol stage singing from his heart. If he was on the show against these five ladies this year, I think not only would the television ratings be higher, but not one of the girls would stand a chance of winning. Seeing Scotty fluidly performing the stage as a two year veteran at the ripe old age of 19, makes you realize the Idol producers picked a pack of poor substitute guys this year after Scotty and Phillip scored them two strong selling winners the past two years. It will be very interesting to see what happens to the winning lady this year.

American Idol Top 6 Performance Night - Two Songs Each, Two Phone Numbers Each!

We have reached the part of American Idol where each contestant sings two songs each week and also they each get two phone numbers for people to call. In reality, I think one line each might really be enough so we could detect some actual busy signals. I took my "one hour after show" snapshot of the DialIdol raw numbers, and at least there were more calls than last week at this time, about 8,500 instead of the 7,000 last week. And this week for the first time ever this season, the contestant with the most busy signals is not Angie Miller! Most people would believe, "oh, it must be Candice Glover since she delivered that show stopping performance of 'Love Song' at the end of the show". But no, the highest number of busy signals is for the one guy who undeniably performed the worst two performances of the evening, the unstoppable force known as Lazaro Arbos. One of his phone lines has 67 busy signals with only 517 total votes. That is more busy signals than Angie or Kree Harrison have on any of their lines and they are the two receiving most of the DialIdol votes this evening.

Whom this is truly bad news for are the two ladies most likely to be in jeopardy of departing tomorrow evening, Janelle Arthur and Amber Holcomb. Hardly anyone is power voting for them using DialIdol at all and neither one of them have many busy signals at all either. Personally, between the two of them I prefer Amber, so my cat and I power voted all of our Facebook votes to try to make sure at least Amber does not end up in the bottom 2. It would be sad if tomorrow night Amber and Janelle end up as the Bottom 2 and Lazaro just stands their watching them. Anybody who has good hearing knows that both Amber and Janelle are considerably better singers than Lazaro, but he has a good chance of outlasting both of them (and perhaps even Candice.)

American Idol Cumulative Album Sales by Season

Since I am an obssessed American Idol numbers geek, I was reading on one blog site (MJ's Big Blog, of course) where some folks were discussing how Idol always goes in a cycle of three seasons, so I thought I would create a new graph. This one takes the list of total album sales by Idol contestants but then groups together by season so we can see how album sales have ebbed and flowed over the years. I took the top album selling Idols #1 to #50 (Carrie Underwood to Paris Bennett) and ended up with the graph above where the blue bar shows the top selling contestant for each season (not necessarily the winner), the orange the second best selling and so on. Sure enough, Seasons 1, 4, 7 and 10 create nice sales spikes and Seasons 3, 6 and 9 have so far created sales valleys. Of course super huge selling artists like Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson make the Seasons 6 and later harder to see, so I made a separate graph for Seasons 6 to 11 that has a maximum of 3 million in total sales:

Season 6 was a sales disappointment at the time since Jordin Sparks "only" sold about 1.0 million of her debut album with Blake Lewis selling about 350K of his debut. Season 7 was much better since not only did David Cook's debut sell over 1.3 million copies, but David Archuleta's debut sold about 800K as well with total sales from all the artists from that season surpassing 2.5 million. Season 8 followed up with a disappointing 350K in sales for winner Kris Allen, but Adam Lambert's nearly million in total sales helped push that season's sales to about the same level as Season 6 (slightly over 1.5 million.) Then there was Season 9 which Idol tries to forget existed, where for a second season in a row the runner up outsold the winner, but this time Crystal Bowersox's 200K in sales was not enough to keep that season from being a major disappointment. Total combined sales for Season 9 Idols has yet to reach 500K. Season 10 marked a significant improvement where Scotty McCreery has proven to be a huge album selling success (now the 7th highest selling Idol ever, and the highest since Season 6.) Along with Lauren Alaina's 300K in sales and additional sales from James Durbin, Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams, Season 10 has better total sales than Seasons 6, 8 and 9. So far Season 11 only has Phillip Phillips and Colton Dixon, but like Scotty, Phillip's debut sales total has already eclipsed all of Season 9 by a large margin. Jessica Sanchez will release her album in a few weeks and that can only help to boost the Season 11 tally. I am not sure if any other Season 11 Idol will release an album soon, but it will be unlikely that they will match the success of Season 10.

So the big question is what will become of the Season 12 Idols when their albums are released. Will they end up like Season 9 or more like Season 10 (or something in between like Season 11.) First we will have to see who the winner and runner up will be and what their albums will be like.  

American Idol Odds Top 6 Season 12

Now that American Idol Season 12 is down to five girls and Lazaro Arbos, the betting odds have changed. Knowing that Lazaro was in the Top 3 but not Candice Glover, has dropped Candice's odds so now she is 4/1 compared to the 2.25 odds she had just a few days ago. Amber Holcomb is the fourth favorite now at 10/1, and Janelle Arthur is now tied with Lazaro as 15/1 long shots after Janelle was in the Bottom 2 with Burnell Taylor. Angie Miller and Kree Harrison are now neck and neck as front runner favorites, with Angie at 3/2 (1.5) and Kree at 8/5 (1.6) odds.

American Idol Tragedy 2013: Lazaro Not Only Survives - He is Top 3!

Oh my goodness, after Angie Miller and Kree Harrison were picked as two of the Top 3 tonight, I was curious which of the other gals there would join them. My bet was on Janelle Arthur first or Candice Glover second, but the crazy answer was Lazaro Arbos! Luckily the next two people sent to safety were Candice and Amber Holcomb, but that meant either Janelle Arthur or Burnell Taylor was going home -- and not Lazaro! I updated my WhatNotToSing rating graph for this week with the known Top 3 (green), middle 2 (orange) and bottom 2 with Janelle in yellow and Burnell in red (eliminated.) Yet, again Lazaro not only survived, but he received more votes than Janelle, Amber or Candice, all three of whom could sing circles around him and could actually record listenable music.

Another interesting number given tonight was the vote total of 25 million, which was down from the 26  million from last week. That means either less people are voting, or people are voting less diligently. I wonder if the FaceBook "Super Voting" is hurting there total vote counts since it is so easy now to just cast your 50 online FaceBook votes and be done with it. It sure beats hitting redial a billion times on your phone. Do they truly count those FaceBook votes as equal to 50 phone calls or 50 SMS text messages? I am curious exactly how the accounting works on these votes. But once again if most of those 25 million votes were people "Super Voting" on FaceBook with one account, that would mean only 500,000 people voting out of the over 11 million people who watched the performance show last night. Do only 4.5% of the people watching Idol vote (less than 1 of 20.) I am glad my cat voted!

Now the remaining contestants must realize that someone has to duet with Lazaro next week. The two guys who teamed in the terrible trio with him last week are now gone, and Angie did her good deed for the week having to sing with him on Rock Week. I pity the poor girl who must sing with him now. All the other guys are gone. There are just five gals who can sing and Lazaro. That almost sounds like the name of a new situation comedy!

American Idol Album Sales: Colton Dixon was Last Week's Big Winner!

Phillip = green, Carrie = orange, Kelly = lt blue, Colton = dk blue

Poor Devin Velez was the loser last week sent home on American Idol, but the big winner for the week was Season 11 seventh place finalist Colton Dixon. After his performance on the results show, Colton saw sales for his "A Messenger" album increase almost 300% to 14K, putting him at #41 on the BillBoard album chart, his highest placement and highest sales since his debut week (#15 with 22K.) Three Amercan Idol winners are also in the BillBoard 100, led by Phillip Phillips' "World From the Side of the Moon" (#23 with 21K for a total of 813K), then Kelly Clarkson's "Greatest Hits" collection right next to Colton at #42 (14K for a total of 355K) and Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" at #55  (11K in sales for a total of 1.377M.) Two previous runners-up debuted in the Top 200 as well, with Crystal Bowersox's "All That For This" at #71 with 8K in sales and David Archuleta's "No Matter How Far" at #110 with 5K in sales. I will add Crystal and Archie to my graph next week if they can stay in the Top 200 next week. With Casey James and Carrie Underwood both appearing on the show tonight, they both should also see a nice boost next week in sales.

American Idol "Rock Night" Voting Not So "Busy"

Last night it appeared that the total number of American Idol busy signals was not as high as it had been previous weeks this season, and this morning DialIdol's raw numbers confirms it. Last night with about 15,000 votes made using DialIdol there were only 147 total busy signals, with 66 of them accounted for by Angie Miller. That means the other six contestants accounted for only 81 busy signals: 37 for Kree Harrison, 27 for Amber Holcomb, 13 for Lazaro Arbos, 3 for Janelle Arthur, 1 for Candice Glover and none at all for Burnell Taylor. By comparison last week there were 411 total busy signals with Angie leading again with 187 busy signals, more than were found for all contestants this week. Here is a pretty graph of the total busy signals and the ones just for Angie over the past 4 weeks:

For the past 3 weeks there had been 300 to over 400 busy signals, and Angie always had about 200 of them, but this week both the total amount and Angie's count dropped off significantly, even though the total number of votes has only gone down slightly (from 19K Top 10 week, to around 16K both Top 9 and 8 weeks, and to ~15K this week.) I also included a yellow column showing the contestant with the second highest number of busy signals each week. For Top 10 week that was Lazaro with 128, Top 9 week it was Kree with 42, Top 8 week it was Lazaro again with 60 and this week it was Kree again with 37. I believe Angie's fans may not have voted as fervently this week knowing she performed last and received much more positive feedback from the judges, so she is most probably safe from being in the bottom.

The preliminary WhatNotToSing.com web ratings confirm Angie's safe position for the week. Looking solely at the solo performances, Angie currently has the highest rating (71), folowed closely by Amber (67) and Candice (65). Janelle (55) and Amber (52) are in the middle. The guys as usual are sitting at the bottom with Burnell at 28 and Lazaro at 20. It is time for another pretty graph showing all their WNTS solo scores for the past weeks sorted from high to low by this week's solo score:

The green bar shows this week's score and the yellow bars show weeks when they were in the Bottom 3. I think it is a good bet to think Burnell and Lazaro will be in Bottom 3 this week, but the big question is what girl will be there with them? Kree performed third and performed solidly if not as "rocking" as one could have hoped, but she was performing with a pinched nerve. Janelle performed fifth and also was not as strong as some of the other ladies. And Amber performed well, but her song was more of a "rock ballad" than an upbeat rocking song too. The only contestants I am certain will not be in the Bottom 3 are Angie and Candice.

American Idol Top 7 "Rock Night"!

Tonight was "Rock Night" on American Idol and sure enough there were quite a few uptempo songs performed tonight, although some definitely "rocked" more than others. In my usual gathering of numbers for the evening, I noticed that sports.bovada.lv had odds available, but the odds for tonight (April 3) actually included already eliminated Devin Velez at 33/1 odds, actually better odds than the 50/1 odds for Lazaro Arbos! The odd makers do finally place Janelle Arthur (12/1) as a higher favorite now than Amber Holcomb (18/1), and places Angie Miller (8/5), Candice Glover (2/1) and Kree Harrison (5/2) in a tight competition as leading favorites.

But tonight it has been one hour now since the show ended so it is time for my 1 hour DialIdol snapshot:

One interesting difference this week is that Angie Miller does not have the one and only big red section of busy signals, this week nobody has one! After one hour, there are again about 7,000 votes, but only 49 total busy signals. This may hit an all time low for busy signals. I will have to check tomorrow morning with the final DialIdol raw numbers. From last week, we saw that Candice Glover was second to the lowest in raw votes but was still not in the Bottom 3. That means her fans obviously vote online and via SMS, not phone calls or DialIdol. I am happy to see that after Burnell and Candice that Lazaro is third from the bottom in raw votes, much like last week, when from the bottom it was Burnell, Candice, Devin, Lazaro, Amber, Janelle, Angie and Kree. This week with Devin removed, the only difference is Angie and Janelle are switching places. I will have to see if this ranking holds up with the final numbers in the morning as well. That is all for now, I will see what happens in the morning!

American Idol Top 7 Betting Odds

I have kept checking the Bovada website looking for their updated betting odds on the final 7 contestants of Season12 of American Idol, but they never seem to have it posted. So with some further Googling, I found the Bovada odds posted on a competing betting site (osga.com) which I could then add to my graph to see how the trends have changed from the previous week. Surprisingly Angie Miller continues to be the odds on favorite (1.75/1) despite having an off performance last week. Perhaps the fact that she did perform so poorly yet still did not end up in the Bottom 3 shows she has a huge group of ardent fans. Kree Harrison and Candice Glover continue to be close favorites as well, both at 2.25/1 odds. I find it interesting that SportsBettingOnline gives Kree the same odds as Angie at 1.8/1 whereas Diamond has Candice as the second favorite at 1.7/1 and Kree at 2/1.

I am also surprised that Janelle Arthur (18/1) continues to be less of a favorite than Amber Holcomb (15/1) after Janelle has produced two impressive weeks of performances. All three betting sites listed at OSGA have Amber at the favorite over Janelle, so some people obviously believe Amber is more likely to win.

I was not surprised to see Lazaro Arbos as the second to longest long shot at 20/1, with only Burnell Taylor at 22/1 having higher odds. SportsBettingOnline actually has Lazaro with favored odds (9.5/1) over Janelle (11.5/1) and Diamond has them both tied at 15/1. All three sites, however, have Burnell as the long shot with the highest payout. I look forward to seeing how they all perform tomorrow night on "rock night" so we can guess who may be going home on Thursday.

I am also curious how many people are actually voting. Now when Ryan Seacrest says "26 million votes" we can easily take that number and divide by 50 to say the very MAXIMUM number of people who might be voting are 26 million / 50 or about half a million people. However, I am guessing many of the people who actually vote have more than one Facebook account (or use friends or family members account) to cast 200 or 300 "Super Votes" in just a few minutes now. If we say a typical "power" voter casts 200 votes, that 26 million vote number gets cut down to 130,000 actual voters which is pretty small, especially when you consider over 10 million people watch every show.