I agree with IgnatiusPartridge–not only that it was a good article, but that many of the author’s suppositions discount one defining quotient, the full power of which, as yet, remains unknown.

IMHO, the same chart blasting records will only happen next year if AI manages to get lucky enough to have lightning strike twice. I suppose they have a chance at finding someone as talented, unique, and star-kissed as David Cook–if more semi-pros bite back their egos and enter that ‘hokey show’–and their singles could easily sell well at season’s end. But I think Archuletta’s 3 hits are more in line with what you might see in that case. I mean, Young David is damned good, and he has a huge following. No telethons for that kid, no way. But he had three hits…while Cook had ELEVEN! Plus, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th examples on your list were only nuggets–amazing that people would even download for a minute-30 worth of song.

Also, on weeks where the contestants sang more than one song (they only picked one to record for ITunes), how many *more* hits would David Cook have had if the show had studio-recorded his second song in its entirety…or even the third? People couldn’t get enough of David Cook. Question is: why?

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, why–over a month later–I find myself Googling ‘David Cook’ to see what’s up with him. And what does this curious fascination mean for his future numbers, if I’m not alone in my obsession (which I don’t think I am)?

This is the third year I’ve watched American Idol from bloody beginning to ragged end, and I can say in all honestly, I’ve NEVER called in to vote before this year. Never. Sure, I watched, made my guesses on who would/should win, but I never felt strongly enough to actually pick up the phone and interject myself into the process. I left that to others, grumbling when I didn’t agree with ‘America’ and her choices (I mean, come on, we all know how crazy America is).

But this year…uh, yeah…I cared. In fact, I cared so much, I stayed glued to the television each week without fail, waiting to see what magic that ballsy, soul-patched guitar nerd would pull out of his ass next. My God, he was good. Fantastic. Mesmerizing. And when he sang, it seemed more to the audience and the camera than the judges (IMHO). Like he cared more what we thought than what they thought. Each week Cook just got better and better. He says he never thought he would get very far, that he figured he would just get as much exposure as possible before being voted off. But as the weeks went by and he did so well, you could almost see his amazement build, see his hopes amp-up along with his performances. Around the time of ‘Billie Jean’ it became obvious he wanted to win–and I began to want it FOR him.

By the finale, Cook could have sat on stage with a teddy bear, sucked his thumb and hummed Mary Had A Little Lamb, and I STILL would have voted for him for four hours (aside: Simon Cowell is a lousy actor). To my mind, he was the winner. He’d earned it. The wonderful performances he gave that night were just cake.

This takes nothing from Archuletta; he’s creepy good, and I have no doubt he will succeed. This isn’t about David Archuletta. It’s about David Cook…and his unseen, unknown, won-over fans out in the nebulous fringes of TV Land. For me, it also has nothing to do with the ‘Cougar’ vote (underestimate THAT lil measure of popularity at your own risk). I have no desire to jump his 25 yr-old bones, nor do I fantasize about him. Sheesh, he is my daughter’s age. LOL

It’s more like an investment. For 24 weeks I watched David Cook bloom, watched him struggle, grow/change/evolve, risk, sweat, yearn. Consequently, I feel instrumental in his win. I care about his experiences and eagerly await his album–which I will definitely buy. I’ve also never bought an AI album before; another first to add to the list.

So, even though the process has hit a lull, this phenomenon isn’t over yet, and Billboard hasn’t seen anywhere NEAR the last of David Cook. Fact is, hundreds-of-thousands of people downloaded his cover songs because they couldn’t get enough of him–and that’s all they *could* get. What will happen when he has a CD out? With just a name and a picture, David Cook’s CD was #1 (pre-order) on Amazon a week after the show ended.

Today, it’s still #74. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist yet. That’s PRE-order. Cook’s popularity on the charts hasn’t even been scratched yet. One thing’s for sure. It will be fascinating to watch.

I doubt few if any of them, if released the same way as Cook’s have been, would have even placed on the top 100 Billboard chart.

You’re so totally wrong. Carrie underwood was a massively popular performer back when the show was really popular.

@SimonSays76: Wasn’t it you with the crazy conspiracy-theorist rants about how the songwriter competition was fixed and stuffed with professionals? If the competition wasn’t legitimate then why do you care who won, or how the winner was announced?

Excellent article, but I think there are a few points you’ve missed which I think dramatically underscore how wildly popular David Cook actually is (and why this record is not merely the result of an American Idol/Itunes manipulation to garner the most sales possible in one week.

You are quite likely correct that previous Idol winners (like Carrie Underwood’s ‘Inside Your Heaven’) might very well have outsold David Cook’s ‘Time of My Life’ if the previous Idol songs had been released in the same way in conjunction with Itunes. After all, ‘Time of My Life’ is the ‘Magic Rainbow’ song, and not very good on it’s own merit (though Cook’s version is growing on me – more proof of how brilliant he is as an artist).

But the real story here isn’t the coronation song (which David Cook had very little real control over, and which in and of itself is not reflective of even his normal genre of music, much less his popularity).

The real story lies in the sales figures for all his previous singles. After all, they were yanked from Itunes on Wednesday after the winner was announced. With the sole exception of ‘Time of My Life’ and the three songs he performed in the finale (’Dream Big’, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, and ‘The World I Know’) all of his prior singles are no longer available for purchase. That means they were only available for 3 days (!) last week and yet amazingly, even though they were older singles that had been available for purchase for weeks and weeks, these songs were so heavily purchased by consumers that most of them managed to land somewhere on the top 100 – and all of his singles placed somewhere on the top 125.

I’m not knocking the sales of the four singles that are still available – they too produced amazing sales numbers for only being available for purchase from Wednesday night through the end of the week. But for his prior singles to have such staggeringly high sales numbers (’Hello’ was from week 3 of the contest – months ago!)

This indicates a level of hunger for David Cook’s music that I believe makes him unprecedented among American Idol alumni. To compare apples to apples, if all of the songs Carrie Underwood sang during her time on American Idol had been available for purchase and download on Itunes I strongly doubt that they would have sold in anywhere near the amounts that David Cook has sold. I doubt few if any of them, if released the same way as Cook’s have been, would have even placed on the top 100 Billboard chart. I remember she did well at a Heart song, but that’s all that stands out in my memory. In ten years people will still remember Cook’s ‘Hello’, ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Always Be My Baby’, ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, etc. So would past Idol winners outsell Cook with their coronation songs? I strongly suspect it. But would their entire body of work over the course of the show outsell David Cook? No way, no how. No contestant I can think of would sell anywhere near as strongly, especially with songs that were released months before.

Jim

I watched American Idol both nights of the grand finale waiting for the announcement of the winners name of the 2008 American Idol Songwriting Competition ……..
and I’m still waiting.
The following quote is from the only link American Idol.com has concerning the songwriting contest. (It’s under the Show Guide Link ….American Idol Songwriter)

“The Nation Has Decided”

“Who Has Won? Tune in to the American Idol Finale on May 20th and 21st 2008
to find out.” End quote.
Like I said ….I watched. And here’s the only thing said about the winner.

Ryan Seacrest ……”Ladies and gentlemen singing the winning song of this years competition …Time Of My Life ..this ..is ..your .. American Idol ..David Cook, Goodnight.” End quote.

9 days later American Idol has yet to name the winner. It’s not in the American Idol news section, not on the American Idol homepage …………..Nothing.

Last year the winner’s were introduced on camera by Ryan Seacrest. This year nada.

The following is from the Myspace blog page of the winner of the 2008 American Idol Songwriting Competition …Mr. Regie Hamm …and he doesn’t seem that happy.

“AMERICAN IDOL, MAGIC RAINBOWS …AND DOTTIE”

“The guy in the feather suit who wrote the song for Simon had his own photo stand where you could have your picture taken with him. Hmmmm, maybe next time I’ll write a song so campy it simply must be performed in front of fifty million people with the USC marching band. At least then I might have my name mentioned or my face shown …but I digress.” End quote.

American Idol made a lot of money off this contest and the ONLY thing we got in return was a thanks for the $10.00 email.

P.S. I dare you to sign up for the American Idol Forums (Songwriting) and post a question or comment about this and see how long it takes till the forum moderators delete it.
Don’t worry you won’t have to wait long. americanidolexposed.weebly.com

Thanks for your comments. Setting aside your quip about Paula et al., which I totally agree with: the sales we’re seeing this year prove nothing about the relative popularity of American Idol. The show is clearly less popular now than it was a couple of years ago, as evidenced by its lower TV ratings. (The finale episode this year did turn things around a bit.)

To reiterate something I said above: this is the first year we’ve ever had this kind of instantaneous, iTunes-based feedback on the show. For all we know, the year that, say, Carrie Underwood won, if the iTunes had been as well-established in ‘04 as it is now, and her “Inside Your Heaven” single had been made available there the same day she triumphed over Bo Bice, she might well have sold twice as many downloads as Cook just did. Or Fantasia with “I Believe,” or even Taylor Hicks with “Do I Make You Proud.” We can’t go back and extrapolate data like this. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess at least a couple of these previous winners could have outsold David Cook, if the same sales/availability conditions existed.

Also, as mighty as Cook’s sales look this week, understand something else: TV draws more consumers than the music business, ever and for always, full stop. Ergo: any song that appears on a TV show, almost regardless of that show’s ratings, will have outsize results on the music charts. My favorite example — back in 1992, a song called “How Do You Talk to an Angel” by a fictional band called The Heights topped the Hot 100; it was the theme to a Fox-TV show that lasted only an episode or two before getting canceled. Think of it: a show that barely lasted two weeks on the air made enough of an impression on potential music consumers that it beat every other song charting back then. A flop TV show on a network draws a few million viewers; if just 5% of those flop-watchers buy a song based on that viewing, that’s a couple hundred thousand purchases–more than enough to top the charts most weeks.

Bottom line, Idol’s Nielsen ratings could sink to half what they are now, and its contestants would still score big hits, so long as they continue to be released in a timely fashion.