American Idol 2011: Scotty McCreery Hits Number One

Scotty McCreery has really out done himself this time. The American Idol 2011 winner has done something that hasn’t happened since 2003: he’s hit #1 on the Billboard 200 with his debut album, Clear As Day. That’s right, not even Carrie Underwood managed to do that with her debut. Only Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard have pulled that off way back when and not again since.

So what does this mean for McCreery and his debut? Well it means it was good, but surprisingly not as good as other recent years. Not even when compared to one recent runner-up:

McCreery’s album sold 197K copies this week. That’s the biggest first-week tally for a first post-Idol album by an Idol winner since Cook’s eponymous album sold 284K in its first week three years ago. But McCreery was edged out by the most prominent runner-up of recent years. Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment sold 198K copies in its first week in 2009.

Scotty sold about two-thirds of what Cook managed but somehow managed to be the first in 8 seasons of American Idol to hit the top of Billboard with that same debut? Go figure. Either way, nice work, Scotty!

Source: Yahoo! Music