How do you explain this then?

It sold 885 copies this week (all digital), or about half of what would be required to make the digital albums chart.

I think the reasons for the Soundscan no-show are a combination of theories 1 and 2 above, but I don’t think anything terribly sinister is going on.

First, sales: full-album digital sales really are, still, a small fraction of phyiscal. In weeks where a blockbuster album sets a digital record, it’s often with sales in the low five figures (Kanye last fall was a notable exception). So imagine that those sales are mostly Apple’s, and imagine that Amazon’s digital sales overall are about one-eighth to one-tenth (I might even be generous there) of Apple’s. It’s entirely plausible that Cook’s sales–even at No. 1 on Amazon, especially for an album that got pulled over two days–numbered less than a grand.

I don’t believe the Idol producers could get Amazon to not report legitimate sales of something. They do that with iTunes only because of their special overall business relationship with Apple–and since the day-after-downloads feature is new for this season, they clearly negotiated that deal point before the season started.

However, I do believe Idol has the clout to tell Amazon, “Please pull this album: 19 owns his recording contract now, we want to not dilute his sales, and we’ll have new product to sell you later.” (Not a deep, dark secret — even if Cook were to get voted out tonight, he’s a shoo-in to record a 19/BMG-distributed album.)

That, plus the short window of sales, accounts for the Soundscan no-show.