Idolator

Ed. note: Chris "dennisobell" Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on this week's Billboard charts:

When the producers of American Idol announced at the start of this season that, for the first time, they would be selling contestants' performances on iTunes, but that iTunes had agreed not to report those sales publicly or to Billboard, we chart geeks grumbled. How would we know how big an impact the show had on consumers' instant whims?

We needn't have worried—we've still got plenty of old songs, the ones the contestants sing, to keep an eye on. Long story short—the show is still huge, and it affects music sales like nothing since Ed Sullivan. Idol contestant Jason Castro: the estates of Cohen and Buckley thank you.

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American Idol hopeful Jason Castro performed his take on the Jeff Buckley interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that won huzzahs from the judges tonight, thus continuing the long, strange journey of Cohen's song from hyperserious-to-an-almost-satirical-point track to something that everyone, even Simon Cowell, can be moved by. Frequent Idolator guestblogger Mike Barthel wrote a paper on the trajectory of the song—complete with graph!—for last year's EMP Pop Music Conference, and it's pretty key reading for anyone who wants to know more about this track that, judging by our Google hits over the past 30 minutes, has been "hidden in plain sight" since its first release some 20-or-so years ago. [clapclap.org]