HITS 5/21-2: Adam Lambert #1 70-75k

[Adam (UTR)]

While it's still early in the week, a three-way battle is shaping up for #1 between Adele and Carrie Underwood, both of which will have substantial post-Mother's Day drops, and Adam Lambert, who appears to be trending to the high end of expectations.

The former American Idol runner-up and 19/RCA recording artist’s sophomore album, Trespassing, looks set to debut with between 70-80k, which will at least put him in the running for a chart-topping bow. His 2009 debut, For Your Entertainment, scored first-week sales of 198k, which was good for a #3 debut, albeit on the Tuesday after Black Friday.

Columbia rock parodists Tenacious D’s Rize of the Fenix roused fans of the duo’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass to buy 45-50k, less than the 81k they scored back in Nov. ’06 with The Pick of Destiny, but still impressive.

Columbia’s Glee: The Music, The Graduation Album is on target for 40-45k.

Sub Pop’s Baltimore dream pop duo Beach House is eyeing 20-25k for their fourth album, Bloom, and second for the influential Seattle indie.

Garbage’s first indie foray, Not Your Kind of People, on their own Stun Volume label, should do in the 18-22k range. Their last album, 2005’s Bleed Like Me, for Geffen, did approximately 75k.

Album sales were down 3% vs. last week, down 2% vs. same week last year and down 1% year to date.

Track sales were down 2% vs. last week, up 1% vs. same week last year and up 7% year to date.

TEA sales were down 3% vs. last week, down 1% vs. same week last year and up 1% year to date.

[Verisimilitude]

Good sales for Beach House and Garbage, especially considering that the latter release is digital only.

[sublime83]

with the Idol performance, i think adam will probably take this one and probably do in the 80-90k range.

any predix on when adele will bow out of the top 10 (heck even top 5)?? ridiculous.

[manchs]

So Carrie and Adele are predicted to sell a little bit more than him? This will be very interesting.

[Deleted]

I see Adele taking this. Lambert is so front-loaded that I see him dropping to around 60K.

[manchs]

May 16, 2012 14:02:16 GMT -5 sublime83 said:

with the Idol performance, i think adam will probably take this one and probably do in the 80-90k range.

any predix on when adele will bow out of the top 10 (heck even top 5)?? ridiculous.

Carrie also performed on AI. Her predictions didn't change and she actually ended up selling less than predictions. Unfortunately Idol is not the same anymore.

[asg4]

I think Hits likes to create close outputs like it did last week so more ppl can tune into their website. Adele will like be low 70s and the battle will be between lambert and carrie. I think lambert will come out on top

[Enigma.]

Carrie + Idol might not be the match made in heaven any more in terms of boost in sales.

Adam + Idol can work a bit better.

[microcuts]

May 16, 2012 14:01:54 GMT -5 Verisimilitude said:

Good sales for Beach House and Garbage, especially considering that the latter release is digital only.

That will be really interesting if Garbage's 2nd week will be higher than its debut week... but it'll probably just be a softer drop than usual.

[Live Your Life]

That's a decent debut for Adam, all things considered.

[freeman]

Go Carrie!!!!!! It would be awesome if she can have 3 consecutive weeks at number one though I'm not betting on it too much.

[ElijahWood]

Ughh @ Lisa Marie getting the shaft again! I would like some kind of estimate!

[Taylor.]

Lambert will be frontloaded, but those are great sales for him even if they drop.

I hope he's not #1 though.

[Verisimilitude]

Looks like Adam may do it!

Adam Lambert Headed for No. 1 on Next Week's Billboard 200 Albums Chart

May 16, 2012 | By Keith Caulfield, Los Angeles

The Good News: Adam Lambert is vying for his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart next week.

The Bad News: His Trespassing set may only sell around 70,000 to 80,000 copies by the end of the tracking week on Sunday, May 20, so say industry sources. It could mark the smallest sum at No. 1 on the chart since last August (chart dated Aug. 20), when Adele's 21 sold 76,000 in its 12th nonconsecutive week atop the list, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

But don't break out the bubbly just yet. Trespassing may be blocked from the top slot next week by either Carrie Underwood's current champ, Blown Away, or Adele's 21. Both albums could sell perhaps 65,000 to 75,000.

The new Billboard 200 chart's top 10 will be revealed on the morning of Wednesday, May 23.

Lambert, who finished in second place on the 2009 season of Fox TV's "American Idol," saw his first major label studio album, For Your Entertainment, debut at No. 3 later that year with 198,000 in its first week (according to SoundScan). The album was released during the very busy Thanksgiving shopping week and was blocked from the top slot by Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream (a debut at No. 1) and Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas at No. 2.

To support Trespassing this week, Lambert played ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday (May 14) and is scheduled to perform on "American Idol" on Thursday (May 17).

Other albums on course for notable debuts next week include the Glee - the Music: the Graduation Album soundtrack, Tenacious D's Rize of the Fenix, Beach House's Bloom and Garbage's Not Your Kind of People.

[HolidayGuy]

So it looks like this week's numbers will produce the year's lowest tally for a No. 1 album (21 scanned 95,144 on the Feb. 4 chart)- and only the second in which the No. 1 album scanned less than 100K. By comparison, in 2011, by this time there were eight weeks in which the No. 1 album scanned less than 100K.

[asg4]

May 16, 2012 14:02:16 GMT -5 sublime83 said:

with the Idol performance, i think adam will probably take this one and probably do in the 80-90k range.

any predix on when adele will bow out of the top 10 (heck even top 5)?? ridiculous.

Adele sales have started to fall i dont think it will remain in top 5 for more then a couple more weeks but i dont see this leaving top 10 for several months maybe 2mon

[when the pawn...]

May 16, 2012 15:13:02 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

By comparison, in 2011, by this time there were eight weeks in which the No. 1 album scanned less than 100K.

Thank the lord for Adele.

I think those numbers are very good for Adam, frontloaded or not. He has zero hit singles and it's been two and a half years since FYE came out. Hopefully "Never Close Our Eyes" or "Cuckoo" will catch on and keep the era afloat throughout 2012.

[Love Plastic Love]

Yeah great sales for Adam actually. No hits and years since his last cd or any true Idol momentum. Not bad at all. I feel like under the right circumstances he could really sell. Unfortunately, radio isn't biting at all.

[Deleted]

The Adam Lambert disc should see a large decline in week 2 because of no hits. The devoted Idol fans are out this week.

[pnobelysk]

kind of what i expected for adam. the album probably wont sell likley in the long run, hopefully he wont get dropped like im expecting kris to be

[rosemoor]

That would be great if Adam can hit 70k. I was thinking more like 50k. Hopefully NCOE can get some radio play down the road.

[Deleted]

Idol performance sales were already incorporated into HITS predictions for Adam. They were also put into the predictions for Carrie, and she ended up selling about 6-7k less than expected for her opening week, so Adam might be front-loaded.

I really don't know who will take #1. I'd love to see Carrie pull out a third week, but seeing her get 2 weeks is a good enough treat since she's never pulled out more than one week on top of the BB200 before.

May 16, 2012 14:20:16 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Carrie + Idol might not be the match made in heaven any more in terms of boost in sales.

Adam + Idol can work a bit better.

This doesn't make much sense to me. ???

[Honeymoon]

^There's no way to know whether they actually factor in stuff like Idol into their predictions

[Deleted]

ABA.

Anybody but Adele. ;)

[carrieidol1]

May 16, 2012 14:20:16 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Carrie + Idol might not be the match made in heaven any more in terms of boost in sales.

Adam + Idol can work a bit better.

That's nice but I see absolutely no logic.

Are you saying this because Carrie is an older Idol? Or is it because she's a bigger star? I'm not sure what you're saying, here...

[Deleted]

I remember when Lambert debuted the original prediction was around 225-250k and he ended up debuting with 198k. He's an artist like Mac-Miller who while they don't have a huge fan base they have a lot of intense stans, I honestly doubt he even hits 70k.

[Cerbius]

I hope Adele takes it. I want 21 to just get one more week at #1; time is running out.

[bornfearless2000]

I bet Carrie will spend another week at #1. But it will be close between #1 and #2.

[Deleted]

May 16, 2012 19:04:29 GMT -5 carrieidol1 said:

May 16, 2012 14:20:16 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Carrie + Idol might not be the match made in heaven any more in terms of boost in sales.

Adam + Idol can work a bit better.

That's nice but I see absolutely no logic.

Are you saying this because Carrie is an older Idol? Or is it because she's a bigger star? I'm not sure what you're saying, here...

Just hazarding a guess here - maybe he is saying that b/c Carrie was already doing heavy promo for her album; thus, an Idol appearance was not going to increase awareness much more than what she already had. Adam, however, only has the Idol performance and GMA this week, IIRC. So his Idol performance could mean a lot more for him b/c it's one of only two platforms that he has and it reaches a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't know he had an album coming out. Again, this is completely a guess as to what he meant, but that is how I interpreted it.

Not sure I want to see what the second week drop for Adam will be like b/c he's basically got nothing going on at radio and relatively little promo lined up this time, but doing anything north of 70k is respectable these days IMO and speaks to the current size of his core fanbase. Now I'm just crossing my fingers and toes in hopes that Kris can hit 40k.

[dbhmr]

Team Adele. I still want 25 weeks to magically happen.