American Idol champ Kris Allen and aboriginal runner-up Adam Lambert appear albums alone six canicule afar in November, aloof in time for Black [Nail Polish] Friday, and accordingly abounding media pundits and admirers akin saw this sales showdown as a "rematch" of sorts afterwards aftermost season's Kris-vs.-Adam Idol finale. Naturally abundant fuss is actuality fabricated about Kris's self-titled anthology actuality the aboriginal Idol winner's admission absolution to abort to able the top 10 in its aboriginal anniversary (it debuted at #11, which beneath accustomed affairs ain't too bare for a fresh artist), and that Kris Allen had the everyman admission sales anniversary of any Idol champ (his account of about 80,000 exhausted Jordin Sparks's "low" first-week sales almanac of 119,000). And likewise, Adam Lambert's sales accomplishment for For Your Entertainment--projected to admission at #3, with almost 196,000 units sold--is actuality (somewhat rightfully) absorbed as a smashing success.
But these numbers have to be analyzed closely. Before any detractors assume that Adam "beat" Kris, that Kris flopped, several factors should be considered.
Now, I kind of always suspected that Adam would sell more records than Kris, not the least in part due his higher profile in the media since American Idol wrapped in May. That's NOT to take away from either singer's actual talent, but it's a sad fact of today's music biz that tabloid controversy sells records. Rihanna and Chris Brown promote their albums by doing weepy TV interviews about their assault case and breakup. Janet Jackson shills her new Number Ones best-of package by doing a frank sit-down ABC News interview about her brother Michael's death. Et cetera. So between Adam's Rolling Stone coming-out party, Out magazine scandal, and American Music Awards/Good Morning America controversy, along with any number of other stories that have kept him in the headlines, he was in a position to sell more records no matter what. However, Adam is a much more polarizing figure--people either love or like Kris Allen; people either love or hate Adam Lambert, sadly--so I knew nothing was guaranteed, especially since Adam's AMAs performance was negatively received by many. Still, it would have been naïve to think that all of Adam's constant publicity wouldn't help his sales somewhat. As TMZ once recently said in a Lambert piece: "Scandals make careers!"
Third, Kris's "disappointing" sales should be viewed in the context of today's marketplace, when hardly ANYONE, not even A-listers, are selling many records anymore. Last year, Alicia Keys had a #1 album one week by selling only 60,519 copies, almost 20,000 less than Kris sold last week. And it should be noted, the same week that Kris Allen came out, usual huge sellers 50 Cent and Norah Jones released anticipated albums that sold relatively poorly. Fiddy's Before I Self Destruct only sold 160,000 copies and debuted at #5, compared to his last album, Curtis, which sold 691,000 in its first week and debuted at #1. Multiple Grammy-winner Norah Jones's The Fall also debuted at #3 last week with 180,000 albums sold, less than half of what she sold in her first week with her last album, Not Too Late (her previous three albums had all debuted at #1, too). So all sales are suffering right now. Keep in mind that while much ado is understandably being made about Adam's first-week sales (which are indeed impressive), season 5's Taylor Hicks, who is considered by many to be the "least successful" of the Idol winners, debuted at #2 and sold nearly 350,000 units in his debut sales week. (And even that number was outsold by Taylor's season 5 castmate, Chris Daughtry.) And both Adam and Kris's sales pale in comparison to the debut sales of season 2 first- and second-place Idol contestants, Ruben Studdard (400,000) and Clay Aiken (613,000). That would never happen now. Those days are over for pretty much everyone...except for Susan Boyle, of course.
And finally, there are many silver linings here for Kris. He has songwriting credit on nine of his album's tracks (eight co-writes plus one song penned solely by him), compared to Adam's four writing credits. And songwriting royalties are really where the real cash is at for musicians, so Kris stands to make quite a nice chunk of change. Additionally, Kris is doing better at radio right now--his "Live Like We're Dying" single has finally cracked the top 20, while Adam's singles have bizarrely not received as much airplay so far--so Kris stands to earn more performance royalties in that regard. And lastly, it seems that more money has been spent on Adam's album promotional campaign, and if that is the case then it will take Kris less time for his record to recoup and turn a profit. I suspect Kris has a David Cook-like career path ahead of him, and will steadily sell records through dogged touring (workmanlike Idol David Cook has quietly sold 1.25 million records that way, playing mid-sized venues and touring with other rock bands that appeal to his fanbase).
Again, this blog is not meant to diss either Idol (for the record, I am a massive Adam Lambert fan), it is merely intended to shed some light on the situation and pre-empt any Kris-vs.-Adam mudslinging based on sales figures alone. At the end of the day, both Kris Allen and Adam Lambert (as well as fourth-place contestant Allison Iraheta, whose fantastic debut record comes out this week) have their eyes on a longterm prize: actual lasting careers. So as important as first-week sales are, I am a little annoyed that this movie-industry mentality (where it's all about the first weekend's box office, and if a movie doesn't gross millions in its opening week, it goes straight to video) has seeped over to the music business, an industry that should be all about nurturing new artists slowly (even if those new artists got their big breaks on America's most-watched TV show). Ultimately, I think it still remains to be seen if Kris and Adam's first-week sales are indicative of their future success, and I also think that for both of them, one thing is certain: This is just the beginning.
