W ith Simon Cowell’s days numbered and Paula Abdul already gone, this season is shaping up to be the end of an era for the US’ most-popular show, the Fox Network’s American Idol.
Really, however, when it comes to living up to its title and creating superstar acts that captured the imagination of millions, the power of Idol has been ebbing for years. While it produced mutliplatinum sensations in its earlier days, starting with Kelly Clarkson and ending with Carrie Underwood, recent Idol winners or runners-up have not had similar chart success.
Kris Allen, last year’s champion, has sold about 200,000 copies of his debut album. And while his Idol runner-up, Adam Lambert, proved to be more popular and controversial, even his debut has not stayed at the top of the charts for long.
“When you start thinking about American Idol as a place that feeds the music business, it’s not as much as people think it is,” said Howard Benson, who produced the first two CDs for Idol finalist Chris Daughtry’s multiplatinum band, Daughtry. “It’s fallen off.”
Of course, “fallen off” is relative when you are talking about a show that has been the undisputed ratings champion since it debuted in 2003. It has produced millions and millions in album sales, Grammy Awards, even an Oscar winner in Jennifer Hudson, who is also a Grammy winner and successful recording artist. Even the also-rans of Idol have managed to parlay career success after an Idol stint.
“It is by far still the most-watched show on TV — even more watched in some years than the Academy Awards and the Grammys or anything like that” says Ann Donahue, senior editor at Billboard magazine. “But actually translating those people who watch the show into buying albums remains difficult.
Like the rest of the music industry, Idol is battling a decline in music sales. But even taking that into account, the drop-off in sales and buzz for Idol winners is telling. When Clarkson became the show’s first winner in 2003, her album, Thankful, debuted at No. 1, sold a healthy 297,000 copies and included hits like A Moment Like This and Miss Independent. It went on to sell 2.7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The next year, champ Ruben Studdard sold 1.8 million and had the hit Sorry 2004. Clay Aiken, that year’s runner-up, did even better, selling 2.7 million copies of his CD, Measure of a Man. Studdard was followed by Fantasia, whose Free Yourself also sold 1.8 million and had the R ’n’ B hit Free Yourself. Underwood established herself as the show’s most successful winner — her country debut sold nearly 7 million copies with major crossover hits like Jesus Take the Wheel and Before He Cheats.
The next winner, Taylor Hicks, was a major disappointment, selling 700,000 copies of his self-titled debut. Jordin Sparks followed with a platinum self-titled debut CD and hit songs, while David Cook had a platinum CD, also self-titled but without the hits.
This year, Idol champ Kris Allen released his self-titled CD to little fanfare. It did not debut at the top of the charts and now sits at No. 91 on Billboard’s Hot 200 albums chart and has not generated a top hit thus far.
In a recent interview, Underwood said being on Idol is not a guarantee of success, even if a performer has a hit debut.
“You look at people who came before me too, like some of them you haven’t really heard from in a while. And I don’t think it’s just since me. I think you’ve got to have a lot of luck on your side, too. Just because people vote for you doesn’t mean they’ll go out and buy your album, and especially now,” she said.
Still, the success of Britain’s Got Talent finalist Susan Boyle shows if an artist piques the interest of the US, they can still generate huge sales. Boyle’s debut CD, I Dreamed a Dream, has sold more than 3 million copies since it was released in November (the same month that Allen and Lambert’s CDs were released). Boyle’s CD was produced by a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, the judge being Simon Cowell.
In an interview with Fox News, Cowell said he decided to leave the show after this season because “I don’t think you should be doing the same thing over and over again.”
“I hope and believe it’s still the No. 1 show in America, which is a pretty good place to be. I think in a way it’s a good thing for the show because it breaks it up: you know it’ll be speculation as to who’s going to replace me and more shows need that,” he said.
“You can’t have the same people the whole time, it gets boring.”
Idol has already provided the show with some jolts. Last year, it added a fourth judge, Kara DioGuardi, to the original panel of Cowell, Randy Jackson and Abdul, and last year, Abdul announced her departure and is being replaced by sunny talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres.
Donahue says contestants like Allen did well in digital downloads of their show performances, and that may be the best way to gauge their success since the show is more popular with the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, who tend to buy singles more than CDs.
“More and more we can expect Idols do pretty well in terms of their digital downloads ... but maybe it’s not really a fair measurement anymore to see how they do in albums, because the people who watch the show, who buy music, buy singles; they don’t buy albums,” she said.
Fantasia, who had a gold CD and success on Broadway after her initial success, said in the end, the success or failure of any Idol depends on the winner and not the program.
“It’s in your hands. We had to fight for [our success] as well.”
“You have to make sure you put out great music and sell yourself,” she said.
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