Ruben’s ‘Soulful’ Drops to #8 While Single Debuts Highest

American Idol 2 winner Ruben Studdard’s album, Soulful, dropped from #1 on the Billboard album chart last week to #8 this week on a 41% drop to 245,000 copies sold compared to the 416,500 copies sold during its first week.

Comparatively, runner-up Clay Aiken’s album, Measure of a Man sold 225,000 copies its second week, with a 64% drop from its first week sales of 613,000, yet still kept the #1 spot that week. This is what makes chart position so difficult to use as a measure of success. Clay sold fewer copies in his album’s second week but held the #1 spot. Ruben sold more but dropped seven places behind.

It is also difficult to determine what type of role, if any, the Christmas buying season plays on buying patterns. Is it less likely that somebody might buy themselves an album during this time when so many are spending money on others? We will need to see what happens after this holiday season is over to better determine comparisons, for those who care to compare.

Albums that jumped ahead of Ruben include The Diary of Alicia Keys, which returned from #2 to the #1 spot on an 8% sales increase. Shock’n Y’all rose 51% to take the #2 spot while NOW That’s What I Call Music! 14 increased 35% to take #3. Spots four through seven went to albums from OutKast, Josh Groban, Hillary Duff, and Sheryl Crow, all with large gains as well.

Information on albums below the #10 spot are not available as of this writing, probably due to the Christmas holiday. However, this means Clay’s album either held at the #11 spot it’s held for two weeks, or went back to dropping on the chart.

All of the news for Ruben is not bad, however. His first single, “Sorry 2004,” was the highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, at #58. Other singles information is not yet available.

12/26/03 Update: New chart information is now in. Click here for further information on this week’s chart positions for all your favorite Idols.

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

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