Stormiya Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 (edited) I use to be a very active member of this forum but I haven’t watched an Idol season in it’s entirety since the 8th season of AI. Before that I followed not only American Idol but Pop Idol, Canadian Idol, Australian Idol, Nouvelle Star, Norwegian Idol, and Swedish Idol. Anyways the current pandemic got me watching old seasons of idol shows (mostly on YouTube) and after rewatching World Idol I started to wonder where the contestants landed in terms of success(sales) and I ended up expanding that idea to Idol contestants in general. I’ve complied two lists from various sources. The first one is albums sales alone. These numbers were the easiest to find and while album sales don’t matter like they use to because of streaming...I think it’s fair to say during idols Peak they did matter. Just some things to point out I couldn’t always find updated numbers for idol contestants and so what is listed is what I could find. A good example of this is Kurt Nilsen the winner of World and Norwegian idol. His sales here only account for two of his seven albums he released. Also with some contestants I couldn’t find an actual number but I found that their album was certified platinum so that’s the number I would then use. WW = world wide sales. Unless specified the sales pertain only to the contestants native country (the easiest to find). Obviously the flag designates the contestants native country I did a cut off of 100k in sales. 100k is a lot for smaller countries where a platinum album is only 30k but it’s a small amount for Americans where 500k is a Gold album and therefore seemed like the closest thing to a happy medium. Kelly Clarkson - 25 Million+ albums (WW) Carrie Underwood - 22 Million+ albums(WW) Daughtry - 9 Million+ albums (WW) Will Young - 6 Million+ albums (WW) Clay Aiken - 5.1 Million+ albums Fantasia - 3.3 Million+ albums Ruben Studdard - 2.7 Million+ albums Scott McCreery - 2.6 Million+ albums Jordin Sparks - 2.6 Million+ albums (WW) Phillip Phillips - 2.5 Million+ albums Adam Lambert - 2.5 Million+ albums (WW) Kellie Pickler - 2 Million+ albums David Cook - 2 Million+ albums Jennifer Hudson - 1.8 Million+ albums David Archuleta - 1.6 Million+ albums Christophe Willem - 1.5 million+ albums Amel Bent - 1.2 Million+ albums Beatrice Egli - 1.2 Million+ albums (DE, AT, CH) Guy Sebastian - 1 Million+ albums Gareth Gates - 1 Million+ albums (WW) Julian Doré - 1 Million+ albums Josh Gracin - 987k+ albums Elliot Yamin - 929k+ albums Mandisa - 928k+ albums Carly Rae Jepsen - 889k+ albums (US,CA,JP, UK) Bo Bice - 822k+ albums Taylor Hicks - 818k+ albums Kris Allen - 785k+ albums Hedley - 700k+ albums Katherine McPhee - 696k+ albums Shannon Noll - 630k+ albums Kurt Nilsen - 542k+ albums (WW) Mark Leon Medlock - 525k+ albums Natalia Druyts - 500k+ albums Lauren Alaina - 459k+ albums Damien Leith - 455k+ albums Bucky Covington - 436k+ albums Jessica Mauboy - 420k+ albums Blake Lewis - 413k+ albums Darius Danesh - 400k+ albums Kalan Porter - 400k+ albums Agnes - 365k+ albums (WW) Lee Dewyze - 321k+ albums Steve Estatof - 316k+ albums E.M.D. - 260k+ albums (WW) William Hung - 257k+ albums Michelle McManus - 250k+ albums Kimberley Locke - 241k+ albums Antti Tuisku - 238k+ albums Crystal Bowersox - 230k+ albums Pietro Lombardi - 230k+ albums Casey Donovan - 210k+ albums Danny Gokey - 204k+ albums Amanda Jenssen - 203k+ albums (WW) Thomas Godoj - 200k+ albums Dave Moffatt - 200k+ albums Anna Abreu - 197k+ albums James Durbin -194k+ albums Darin Zanyar - 186k+ albums (WW) Ryan Malcolm - 178k+ albums Anthony Callea - 175k+ albums Young Divas - 175k+ albums Diana DeGarmo -168k+ albums Toya Alexis - 159k+ albums Miss Dominique - 150k+ albums Justin Guarini - 146k+ albums Anna Puu - 144k+ albums Haley Reinhart - 143k+ albums Amandine Bourgeois - 135k+ albums Colton Dixon - 128k+ albums Tamyra Gray - 123k+ albums Monika Brodka - 120k+ albums Rex Goudie - 120k+ albums Alexander Klaws - 120k+ albums Gary Beals - 110k+ albums Daniel Schuhmacher - 107k+ albums Jason Castro - 105k+ albums Allison Iraheta - 103k+ albums Hanna Pakarinen - 102k+ albums Markus Fagervall - 102k+ albums (WW) Aneta Langerová - 100k+ albums Tobias Regner - 100k+ albums Heinz Winckler - 100k+ albums After doing the album sales list I tried to do a total sales list that combines album sales with singles and digital sales. These numbers are harder to find so I kept the list shorter and made a million in sales the cut off. Kelly Clarkson - 70 million+ records sold Carrie Underwood - 65 million+ records sold Daughtry - 34.6 million+ records sold Carly Rae Jepsen - 25 million+ records sold Jordin Sparks -12 million+ records sold Will Young - 10 million+ records sold Phillip Phillips - 8.8 million + records sold Adam Lambert - 8 million+ records sold Clay Aiken - 6.6 million+ records sold David Cook -6 million+ records sold Kellie Pickler - 5.6 million+ records sold Scott McCreery - 5.3 million+ records sold Fantasia - 5 million+ records sold Guy Sebastian - 4.7 million+ records sold David Archuleta -4.5 million+ records sold Kris Allen - 3.7 million+ records sold Gareth Gates - 3.5 million+ records sold Jennifer Hudson - 3 million+ records sold Ruben Studdard - 3 million+ records sold Amel Bent -2.2 million+ records sold Josh Gracin -2.2 million+ records sold Elliott Yamin - 2 million+ records sold Christophe Willem - 2 million+ records sold Katherine McPhee - 1.9 million+ records sold Jessica Mauboy -1.6 million+ records sold Laura Alania -1.5 million+ records sold Mandisa - 1.5 million+ records sold Agnes - 1.3 million+ records sold Bo Bice - 1.3 million+ records sold Hedley - 1.2 million+ records sold Bucky Covington - 1.2 million+ records sold Beatrice Egli - 1.2 million+ records sold Blake Lewis -1.2 million + records sold Shannon Noll - 1.2 million+ records sold Julian Doré - 1 million+ records sold Taylor Hicks - 1 million+ records sold I had fun putting these lists together and thought I would share them with other Idol fans who might take an interest in seeing these numbers! Enjoy! Edited January 23, 2021 by Stormiya 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 Rudy! Long time, no see. Welcome back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormiya Posted March 5, 2021 Author Share Posted March 5, 2021 (edited) Fun fact to go with these numbers. Paula Abdul has sold a total of 53 Million records world wide! Which means only two Idol contestants (Kelly & Carrie) to date have out sold her. Its also worth pointing out that Paul achieved those sales numbers with only 3 studio albums and 17 singles which is less than half of the total albums from Kelly or Carrie. Edited March 5, 2021 by Stormiya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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