more than a name or face in the crowd.

[semisweet]

\o/

Comments

[beautifulcity.livejournal.com]

YAY.

(btw, I saw this girl at the CD release party last week who kind of sort of looked like you, but I was really nervous about going up to her and asking if she WAS you because I didn't want to be that creepy person, and then finally I sucked it up and was like fuck this and asked her, and it turns out it wasn't you, and I felt like a total jackass....just thought I should share that story haha)

[inlipstickred.livejournal.com]

ahhhh, oh bb! i totally didn't realize you were going to be there or i would've been on the hunt for you! next time we'll have to coordinate better! <3333

[beautifulcity.livejournal.com]

It was a TOTAL last minute decision to go - my friend and I discussed it the day before and were like, okay well we're not going to camp out, but we're going to buy the CD anyway - lets just get up ridiculously early for work and get in line at like, 6:30 and see if we can get bracelets.

Next time. :-)

[morethan-hope.livejournal.com]

YAY!! :)

[inlipstickred.livejournal.com]

i'm mad he didn't beat nickelback, lol, but 283k is pretty rad!!! :D :D :D

[morethan-hope.livejournal.com]

ugh. don't even get me started on nickelback.

totally rad bb! he demolished archie! hehehe.

[heartsfortress.livejournal.com]

WIN. \o/

(i still wanted #1, but considering who the competition was, we weren't going to get that no matter what.)

[inlipstickred.livejournal.com]

yeah, i knew there was no way he was hitting #1 this week - i just wanted his sales to be good, and they're even better than i originally expected! (i'd just been praying he'd crack 200k tbh.)

[heartsfortress.livejournal.com]

NEXT TIME, BB. *nods*

[misskatieleigh.livejournal.com]

LOL I JUST POSTED THIS TOO.

so much win.


only 100,000 more than a certain someone last week

[hearthisvoice.livejournal.com]

N'awwwwwww good for him! Where does this put him in the Idol first week rankings of historicity? lol

[heartsfortress.livejournal.com]

according to wurdnurd's journal...

Rank / Name / Album / Release Date / Sales / Chart Position
1 Clay Aiken Measure of a Man 10/14/2003 612,859 1
2 Ruben Studdard Soulful 12/9/2003 416,569 1
3 Carrie Underwood Some Hearts 11/15/2005 314,549 2
4 Chris Daughtry Daughtry 11/21/2006 303,677 2
5 Taylor Hicks Taylor Hicks 12/12/2006 298,199 2
6 Kelly Clarkson Thankful 4/15/2003 297,000 1
7 David Cook David Cook 11/18/2008 ~283,446 3
8 Fantasia Free Yourself 11/23/2004 239,389 8
9 Bo Bice The Real Thing 12/13/2005 226,976 4
10 Jennifer Hudson Jennifer Hudson 9/30/2008 217,185 2

[misskatieleigh.livejournal.com]

well, that makes him only 5th if you only look at the people who WON idol then.

;)

[hearthisvoice.livejournal.com]

JFC I can't believe Taylor Hicks sold almost 300K his first week. WTAF. How many copies did each of his fans buy? /o\

[thegirliscrazy.livejournal.com]

lol, that was the problem...they only bought one.

I'm surprised he even sold that much b/c a) the album was not only garbage but sounded nothing like anything Taylor would choose himself and b) the label and show made it a point not to promote it. He never even had a single. Woe.

(I own his album, don't tell anyone! :-) Can't help it, I was one of those odd people who genuinely liked the guy)

[hearthisvoice.livejournal.com]

Oh I liked him too, I just can't fathom how he sold that close to 300K back then. But the market was different even two years ago. That CD was shit. I still play his old stuff every once in a while when I'm feeling Southern rock-ish, and I still love his crazy drunken live bootlegs.

[thegirliscrazy.livejournal.com]

yes, drunken bootlegs for the win!

i'm always a little bitter over his lack of promotion. The opening numbers IMO were a good sign, he could have sold if they had just tried. Even if they didn't like the guy, I thought business was supposed to be business, you know? Who doesn't want to make more money? FWIW at least he did get certified platinum (I think actual sales were about 750k though, there was some gross overshipment going on there).

[thegirliscrazy.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to feel for a pattern here so I can project but the top five of that list is throwing me way off. Carrie's debut is half that of Clay's but she ended up selling twice as much, and she and Daughtry definitely outsold Ruben in he end.

If I concentrate on the bottom five though, Thankful went 2x platinum, Free yourself sold 1.8 million, and both albums got fair promotion IMO. So those look like good odds for David Cook to go 2x platinum as well, or very close to it.

[inlipstickred.livejournal.com]

it's so hard to say, too, because there are so many other factors. i mean, in ruben and clay you had such a huge bitter rivalry to drive sales. plus, pirating music has become SO much more widespread in the past five years. hell, album sales this year and down 25% from 2007. that shit is crazy.

[thegirliscrazy.livejournal.com]

ugh, 25% in one year! and '07 sales were already bad enough. i know on one forum they did a list of the top selling albums of the calendar year, and only one - ONE - album has hit double platinum (lil wayne). coldplay was at 1.8m so maybe they will get there in by 12/31...maybe. but that is a ridiculous number when you consider that not so long ago, pushing a mere 'platinum' was nothing - sometimes even considered a flop - for major artists, and now it is a huge fucking accomplishment.

i have heard people say before that music is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment and so it doesn't get affected as much by the economy and that may very well be true, but pirating is so easy now that it completely nullifies that theory. it really comes down to fan loyalty. it SHOULD be about the music, but it isn't - hasn't been for a very long time. it's about if you can convince someone to like YOU enough to buy your album even if they already have their favorite song as their ringtone.

it's so weird to think about twenty, ten, five years ago when it actually was not hard to develop a committed fanbase of any size if you put out a good (or at least commercial) album in your genre. now? it's like pulling teeth to get people to be bothered or to make the connection between album sales ---> favorite artist's chances of getting to make a next album. and if they do nine times out of ten they are not average fans, but obsessed stans. i have no problem with being designated as an obsessed stan if that is what it comes down to, btw :-) but it's a shame that it has to be like that. i have friends/a sister who look at me like i've lost my mind when i buy an album, b/c i could easily have it for free. i shouldn't feel like a freak for buying a cd, for crying out loud.

as you can see i could talk about this all day...music is my obsession. all that said i'm really proud of dc for doing 283k his first week, and a number like that, with continued steady promotion, SHOULD hold up to a good total at the end the entire cycle. i have my fingers crossed for him.

[tirtzah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if this had been even two years ago DCook's numbers would be much higher, but album sales are just down in general. There was a detailed article posted on the DCO numbers thread about it a while back.

[ninasfeet.livejournal.com]

that is a beautiful thang...

[vintagevixen.livejournal.com]

WOOHOO!

[fallenangels607.livejournal.com]

\o/!!

[tellcincinnati.livejournal.com]

FUCK YES. \o/

[gossips.livejournal.com]

i'm really, really happy about that! \o/ to be honest i don't care that much about he not beating nickelback, i care more about him beating archie. oh yeah i just said that. *shrug* and i like archie, just don't like some annoying archey fans who kept saying cook wasn't going to be successful because, yknow, his single was not #1. so, if to them it's still a competition, i'm glad dcook won. again.

[/end rant]

[inlipstickred.livejournal.com]

no, i totally agree, bb. i have nothing at all against archie, but i'm glad that i won't have to hear a bunch of douchefaced archangels calling him the real winner or whatever.

[singingrl.livejournal.com]

YAY! Congrats DCook :) I knew this album was going to be big, I would have liked it if he'd beaten Nickelback (because they suck) but whatever, finishing 3rd behind Beyonce and Nickelback is total winner territory :D

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kittenheels/]

Eeeee! So excited! Archie's official Billboard number ended up being actually a few thousand higher than his HDD number so I wonder if maybe this number will end up looking more like 285,000. No matter what, \o/!!!!

[brookie0cookie.livejournal.com]

^ I am really surprised at the other numbers. I don't think Taylor Hicks sold any more CDs past his debut week.

I really wanted DFC to beat Nickleback. Or debut at #2 at least. But I'll take him beating Archie's #s.

[heartsfortress.livejournal.com]

I don't think Taylor Hicks sold any more CDs past his debut week.

he must have, seeing as his debut went platinum.

[tirtzah.livejournal.com]

I think he sold somewhere in the range of 800,000 in the end. The platinum status is based on number of units shipped, not number of albums sold.

Why do I know this? I don't even care about Taylor Hicks. o_O

[tirtzah.livejournal.com]

Awesome! \o/ Considering he was going up against two very well established, huge sellers and this is his debut album those are really impressive numbers. I mean Pink didn't even break 200,000 with her recent album.

Now on to hoping the album has legs and will keep selling well so we can have another one. :D

...

Yay!