Top Selling American Idol Contestants

American Idol is a ratings juggernaut and a household name. The show has, over the years, produced many recording artists but strangely enough, the successful ones have not necessarily been the winners or the runner ups.

Chris Daughtry is perhaps the most famous of these having finished in fourth place in season five. Soon after dropping out of the show he went on to form a band called Daughtry of which he was lead vocalist. The band’s debut album went on to sell over a million copies within five weeks of its release. This earned it the title of “fastest selling debut rock album of all time”. Within nine weeks it overthrew the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack to become 1# on the Billboard Charts. Chris Daughtry is a shining example of the term “winning is not everything”.

In terms of successful second place finishers, Clay Aiken is the best example. Aiken lost out to Ruben Studdard but released an album that debuted at number 1 and sold over 600,000 copies in the first week itself. Katharine McPhee and Blake Lewis are the other two notable second-place finishers who have done well, but have yet to overtake Aiken’s achievements.

The former waitress, Kelly Clarkson is the most successful pop/pop-rock artist to emerge from American Idol. The season one winner released
her first album “Thankful” in 2003 and “Breakaway” soon followed in 2004 going on to become a multi-platinum album. A two time Grammy winner, Clarkson’s last album was “My December” released in 2007 and the artist has now sold over 16 million albums to date worldwide.

Carrie Underwood is perhaps the biggest superstar of all eclipsing even Clarkson by winning an American Music Award, two Grammys and a whopping five Billboard Music Awards for her music. “Some Hearts”, her debut album, has been certified 6x Platinum. It is also the fastest selling of all debut country music albums of all time. It also claims its place as the best selling album by any contestant from American Idol in the United States.

Notable Benefit Concerts

Benefit concerts have always been very popular. Due to the very nature of these concerts, where all proceeds go to helping some worthy cause, people have always flocked to them. Usually the performing artists accept very little in terms of remuneration and most do not accept any payment at all. The largest of these in recent times was the Live 8 concert of 2005. But there have been other notable concerts over the past few years and the following is a list of a few of them:

The 1967 Monterey Pop Festival can be considered the Grandfather of all benefit shows and was put together to raise funds for the MIPF Foundation.

This year saw tremendous devastation (the worst since the Asian tsunami disaster) in Haiti. Wyclef Jean has organized three benefit concerts in New York, Los Angeles and London to help the victims.

The Top Five Christmas Songs of All Time

By the time Christmas comes and goes it takes a lot out of us. The shopping, the cooking, the eating, etc all take a toll on everyone. But what keeps everyone going throughout the whole season and sometimes after that, are the good old Christmas songs. It’s no wonder that some of the oldies have been voted the best of all time.

“Santa Claus is coming to town” - It debuted in 1934 on Eddie Cantor’s radio show and has been with us since. It was penned by Coots and Gillespie with an infectious melody that has lasted for almost a century.

“Let it snow” - Ironically, this song was written on one of the hottest days that was ever experienced in California. Written by Sammy Cahn and composed by Jule Styne, the song came into being in 1945. To add to the irony, both the writer and composer were Jewish.

“Rudolph the red nosed Reindeer” - Originally this was a story written by Robert L. May, which was published in 1939. Later on Johnny Marks turned it into a hit song which has been covered by a myriad of artists. Since then Rudolph has gained prominence and is almost as well known as St. Nick himself.

“Jingle Bells” - Being the oldest song on our list, it was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont. Initially, the song was registered under the name “One horse open sleigh”, but through the ages the name gradually changed to the one we are familiar with now.

“Feliz Navidad” - From the oldest to the youngest, this José Feliciano hit was penned in 1970. It carries a simple message with an infectious tune.

How Artists Use Social Media

Social Media is the rage these days and it has enabled interaction between online users at a level that has never been seen before. Information exchange, opinions, polls, link sharing, calls to action, etc the list goes on as to how social networking is transforming lives of people around the world. Social networking involves the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc.
The use of social media can be very beneficial to artists, especially those who are waiting to be discovered. Let us look at four ways in which artists can use social media to promote themselves.

YouTube - The revolutionary video sharing service that began it all is the perfect place to display your talents. Whether it is playing an instrument, singing or producing tracks you can put it on YouTube for the world to hear and see.

Twitter - This is a great way to stay in the spotlight while helping you to showcase your talent as well. By providing links to your YouTube videos, you can make sure that more and more traffic is generated.

Facebook - This provides an excellent way to gather fans, keep them informed of your achievements, interact and receive feedback on your material.

Blogs - Maintaining a blog will allow fans to get to know you more in detail and to understand your thought process. Blogs allow you more freedom of expression than most other social media, so use it carefully.

In using these methods, a few things must be kept in mind.

1. Never be too pushy
2. Always listen and interact
3. Maintain a uniform image across all mediums

This will ensure your success and increase your chances of being discovered.

Anticipated Rock Albums of 2010

This year looks good for fans of veteran groups who are emerging once again, hopefully, with great albums.

Blink 182 is almost guaranteed to put out an album this year following their inability to do so last year due to logistical issues. Fans will be happy to know that drummer Travis Barker will also be releasing an album; his solo debut will take place in spring.

Since Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock has been silent and with good reason. The success of Rock N Roll Jesus was such that the pressure for its successor to be a smash has been great. Kid Rock has been in the studio working and reworking the material for the follow up album throughout the year 2009.

With the wild success that the Kings of Leon have been experiencing in recent times, it is only natural that they would want to experiment a bit more. According to the drummer, Nathan Followill, the band will sound “more adventurous” in their upcoming 2010 release.

It is titled Korn III and it could be here sooner than you think. Korn is back in the scene, reunited with producer Ross Robinson who put together the first two albums. The expectation is for an album similar to those previous hits.

After the massive success of Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water in 2000, Limp Bizkit and guitarist Wes Borland parted ways. Now they are back again in the studios recording a 2010 release album. Expect an early release as the initial target was December 2009.