Ruben Debuts at #1, Plus Other Idols on the Charts

As was expected, American Idol 2 winner Ruben Studdard’s premiere album, Soulful, debuted at the #1 spot on the Billboard album chart. The album outsold original American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson’s debut week with 416,500 copies to her 297,000 copies in the first week. However, runner-up Clay Aiken beat them both with sales of 613,000 the first week.

At the same time Ruben sailed to the top, other established artists didn’t have the same success. For example, Musiq’s new album, soulstar, debuted at #12 and sold 156,000 copies; Westside Connection’s Terrorist Threat came in at #16 with 136,000 copies sold.

Ruben’s first single, “Sorry 2004,” has not yet hit the top portions of the charts yet, but we’ll be watching for it.

Meanwhile, in other Idol chart news, Clay’s album, Measure of a Man held its position from last week at #11, after having started at #1, fallen down to #15, and then rising again. Kelly Clarkson’s Thankful dropped four places, from #88 to #92. The Soundtrack for Love Actually, featuring Kelly Clarkson’s “The Trouble With Love Is,” plummeted from #39 last week to #64 this week (after having jumped from #53 to #39 the week prior). And as we get closer to Christmas and, presumably, more sick of Christmas music, the American Idol: The Great Holiday Classics album has fallen again, this week going from #41 to #52.

On the singles charts, Clay’s “Invisible” again held steady at #43 on the Billboard Hot 100 and moved up a notch to #11 on the Adult Contemporary chart. His Christmas single, “The First Noel,” also moved up on the Adult Contemporary chart, to #13 from #16 while his Christmas duet with Kimberley Locke, “Silver Bells,” moved up to #19 from #22. So Clay has three songs in the Billboard Adult Contemporary Top 20 (though obviously two of those will fall out after Christmas). Kelly Clarkson also has a Christmas single on that same chart, with “My Grown Up Christmas List” moving up a spot to #18.

It will be interesting to see how holiday shopping factors in to the chart positions for all of the Idols. Foxes On Idol will continue to track them for you, so be sure to check back regularly.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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