NY Daily News Reports
Get ready for the frump to trump the competition.
Unglamorous singer Susan Boyle stands poised to not only seize the No. 1 slot on Billboard's Top 200 Album chart this week, but to do so with the biggest opening sales of the year.
Though final tallies won't be released until Wednesday, sources say the Cinderella singer's debut, "I Dreamed a Dream," will enjoy sales of between 625,000 and 700,000 albums in its first week.
Those numbers would handily beat the tally of the year's previous opening champ: Emimen, whose most recent CD, "Relapse," sold 609,000 in its first blush back in late May.
Both Billboard and HitsDailyDouble.com predict roughly the same numbers for Boyle, based on early reports from the nation's big-box retailers as well as figures from QVC, which has played a key part in hawking this TV-created star.
A QVC source told The News the network had 83,650 preorders units for "Dream," making it that outlet's top-performing music title in a decade. Amazon doesn't reveal precise numbers, but sources told Billboard that its U.S. pre-orders likewise topped 80,000.
Boyle's CD, like all others released last week, enjoyed one advantage over most other albums issued in 2009. They jumped the common release date (Tuesday) by one day, instead coming out on a Monday (Nov. 23).
Boyle's juggernaut says a lot about new ways of marketing music in the modern age, according to Billboard's Keith Caulfield. While the star has gotten a bit of conventional radio play - mainly on Adult Contemporary stations which picked up on her version of "Silent Night" - Caulfield credits her main success in the States to YouTube. "She became a star there, and the album cover says ‘as seen on YouTube," he says. "When people went to the store last week, I'm not sure they even needed her Today Show performance or NBC Thanksgiving Night special. They already knew her."
Boyle's success isn't the only news on the charts this week.
Despite - or maybe because of - his antics on the AMAs last week, Adam Lambert's album, "For Your Entertainment," will debut at No. 2, with stronger than expected sales of roughly 225,000 units, according to both Billboard and HitsDailyDouble.com. That's nearly triple the sales of Kris Allen, the guy who beat him for this year's "American Idol" crown. Allen's self-titled debut sold just 80,000 copies in its first seven day sales period, which preceded Lambert's by one week. That's the worst opening sales record ever for an A.I. winner.
Still Caulfield sees a silver lining. "Kris sells a lot of individual tracks, rather than full albums," he explains. "Maybe his fans are younger and only have allowances to buy 3 or 4 tracks. They could buy more later."
Either way, says Caulfield, "When it comes to artists like Adam and Susan Boyle, people want the whole package."
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