That Was My Then

Last season's American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks, debut song -- "This Is My Now" -- may have been a bit too prophetic and the same goes for beat-boxing runner-up, Blake Lewis.   The final two are the first of the Season Six-ers to release albums and the response has been pretty tepid.

Since Jordin is the Valley's pride and joy, we saw and heard quite a bit about her when her self-titled album was released two weeks ago.  While she cranked out over 119,000 sales units, it was only good enough for a #10 debut on the album charts and "earned" the dubious distinction of Weakest-Ever Opening For An American Idol Champ. 

While the sample size of 5 previous winners is pretty small company, it's still not saying much that she got bested by the likes of "Where are they now?" candidates Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks.   And that the album dropped to #18 in its second week.  There is some good news... her first single, Tattoo, which is still on an upward journey at #11 after 10 weeks on the charts.

Even though I was more a Blake fan, I still thought it was better that Jordin won... by far the better fit for an Idol winner.

I was pretty enthusiastic about Blake's debut album.  While the album cover (pictured left) has been much maligned... I liked it.  It had that 80s retro feel (which Blake said he was going for)... so the kinda kitschy cover art was fine.  I even liked his debut single, Break Anotha.  (Doing my best Dancing With The Stars host Tom Bergeron elimination voice)... but did America agree??

Apparently not.  Even before her less than Spark-ling debut (thank you, I'm here all week!), I thought Blake would far outsell Jordin (ala Idol Season 2's Clay and Ruben)... but alas, while also debuting at #10, Blake sold 21,000 less units than Sparks did in her first week.  In the runner-up first week sales department that only puts him ahead of Justin Guarini and Diana DeGarmo (so inversely... behind Clay, Bo, and Katherine)... yikes!

Blake's video debut likely won't help out matters.  I caught it over at EW and has a You-Tube-ish quality to it ... my imaginary pop-culture BFF Michael Slezak, as usual, nailed it: "Who wants to bet I spent more money on groceries at Trader Joe's last night -- one that doesn't stock alcohol, by the way -- than the total budget for Blake Lewis's Break Anotha video?"

And while I giggled like a "Blaker Girl" during his recent visit to Ellen on hearing he likes to "go commando," any goodwill generated by that habit was squashed with plans for full back and chest tattoo of Alice in Wonderland morphing into Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory.  Now a tat (or even two) can be sexy, but I'm not a big fan of the body-covering kind.

So have we reached the point of whither American Idol?  We'll start finding out in about a month when Season 7 gets underway... but keep in mind, that Season 3 Champ, Carrie Underwood bested both Jordin and Blake both those weeks with her sophomore effort released in October.

UPDATE:  More good pre-Season 6 Idol news...  Billboard crowns 'Daughtry' top seller... the best-selling album of the 2007 with 3.2 million copies sold of the self-titled debut.  Kinda makes you wonder how the band earned 4 Grammy nods but not one for Best New Artist.