New Year, Last Post

Welcome to 2011 and my final post on my old blog! I realized last year that the only reason I followed American Idol was I had fallen for a incredible new talent on Season 9, that being Crystal Bowersox. I have never cared about American Idol before, but since I first heard her sing "Natural Woman" before they selected the Top 24 I was captivated by Crystal's performances. I tried to start this as a neutral and unbiased AI blog last year, but by the time Crystal released her album, "Farmer's Daughter",  in December, I realized I could no longer pretend to be unbiased. It is not that I have anything against any of the other contestants, I just think Crystal is exceptional. On this blog I noticed almost all my posts in November and December were about Crystal, since I really was not that interested in what was happening to Lee at that point. He is a pretty talented fellow and may do quite well, but I just am not a big fan of his music now that the show is over. I am actually more curious about what may become of Casey James once his music is released in 2011. We will have to wait and see what happens to him!

So the "Farmer's Daughter" album has now been out for more than 3 weeks and the latest sales results have been released. In three weeks Crystal has sold 106,000 copies and has dropped to #62 on the BillBoard 200. She had debuted at #28, then fell to #47 so falling to #62 after 3 weeks is not too bad. She appears to be continuing to rank well on Amazon sales (currently #10 in all music sales) so she will hopefully stay in the top 100 for a few weeks and may even move up once "Farmer's Daughter" is released to radio. Her video is now playing on VH1 and people can even vote for it on the VH1 Top 20 Countdown. She is even playing tomorrow at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas representing Sony Music.

Splitting This Blog now that it is 2011!

I now realize how foolish I was to give my American Idol blog a URL with a year in it. Now that it is 2011 who would read something called idolblogger2010? So now I am creating a new AI stats blog with the name aistats.blogspot.com and a separate crystal-bowersox-tracker.blogspot.com site which follows her career. I now realize Crystal was the only reason I watched Idol last year (the only year ever that I watched a whole season religiously) and the past couple months the only thing I cared about was her album and how her career was progressing. I am guessing that 2011 will prove to be the year where Crystal Bowersox will either make a huge name for herself in the general music scene, or if she will just continue to be a very talented singer/songwriter doing what she loves with enough financial success to keep her going. In either case I love her music and will continue following her. She is the only AI contestant who I ever cared about and her album is the only one we have ever purchased besides Carrie Underwood's "Some Hearts". In my AIStats blog I will continue tracking the numbers for Season 11, but if none of the contestants end up piquing my interest I may not continue with that one. At this point, I am much more interested in seeing what happens to Crystal in 2011 as her songs start hitting radio and she continues to perform and promote her music.

"Farmer's Daughter" two week sales approach 100,000 units

Wow, who would have guessed that in two weeks that Crystal Bowersox's new album would have sold nearly 100K units without a radio single to support it? That is pretty good. After first week sales of 58,000 and second week sales of over 37,000 she should break 100K by the end of the year. And her real radio and video promotion does not begin in earnest until January which can only help matters out. She only had a 35% drop in sales which is pretty good, but she was helped by selling during the holiday sales weeks. She will also be appearing on Access Hollywood tonight after having a special appearance at the Village Idiot in Toledo on Monday night. Let's hope for even more success for Crystal in 2011!

"Farmer's Daughter" debuts for Crystal Bowersox with 58,000 first week sales

If you factor in that Crystal Bowersox does not currently have any radio airplay of her songs at all and performs with a difficult to pinpoint musical style, the 58,000 first week sales for Crystal's "Farmer's Daughter" is pretty impressive for her. She did pick a good week to release it right before Christmas, but she did end up outselling Lee's first week numbers by almost 50%. I think her second and third week sales will be more telling as well as how the album sells once her song starts getting radio play in January 2011. Another good sign for her is the number of views her video is receiving on YouTube with over 140,000 views in six days. She also has a new main website now, but unfortunately there are no user discussion forums on it anymore. If you want to join in the conversation, the best blogs or forums are at MJ's Big Blog, Bowersoxfans.com or even the American Idol Forums.  Crystal is also back on TV tonight (or is it technically tomorrow morning?) on Chelsea Handler's show. Due to the wonders of YouTube we can all enjoy it now without having to stay up late to watch it!

"Farmer's Daughter" video on VH1 and CMT.com and 2011 Country release

It sounds like from recent tweets from her publicist, that Crystal Bowersox's debut single "Farmer's Daughter" (from her album with the same name) will be released to country and AAA radio stations in January 2011. A lot of fans had commented that she should go the country route, and it looks like it will happen. One proof of this is the release of her music video to CMT.com. You actually cannot search for her and find her on the site, but if you know the exact URL you can find her. It is similarly on VH1.com where you can find it if you know the URL but otherwise you could never find it unless you use the current American Idol link on the homepage (with Crystal's photo). Crystal will also be back on broadcast TV this week. After being on ExtraTV this weekend, she will be on Chelsea Handler's show this Wednesday, Dec 22.

By late tomorrow afternoon we should also find out the total first week sales tally for her album. HitsDailyDouble and Billboard are both predicting about 50,000 copies, but I wonder if that takes into accounts the sold out status at Amazon briefly and also order problems on crystalbowersox.com (her Sony Online site.) If those numbers were expecting to include those sales the tally may come in lower than expected, but if that is a sign of unexpected high demand, the numbers might come in higher. We will have to wait until tomorrow to know for sure.

Other new items for Crystal include a radio interview about Christmas songs at The Takeaway, and also a video interview where she flares her nostrils. You cannot say she takes herself too seriously!

More on Crystal Bowersox's "Farmer's Daughter" music video and the "F-bomb"

When the Crystal Bowersox "Farmer's Daughter" music video first appeared on VEVO.com early yesterday, I noticed the version of the song they used was the "explicit" version which simply meant it had the "F-bomb" in it. Frankly, I think the song and video are so moving that word is really not needed, but I guess Crystal likes it since it adds more impact to that line of the song. I personally prefer the "I'm so sick and tired" version she has been performing on TV lately (Leno, Regis and Kelly, Ellen.) I noticed the music video has now popped up on MTV.com and that version is the "clean" version from the CD which will obviously be the version that also plays on VH1. The VEVO video version on YouTube by CrystalBowersoxVevo is the one everyone is linking to (including the country music site, todayscountrymusicvideos.com) and that is the original "explicit" version most popular with the most hits. In about 24 hours it has had over 10,000 views. In fact if you check the single song tracks from Crystal being purchased on iTunes, the explicit version of "Farmer's Daughter" is far and away her most popular download. The clean version is way down at #12 right now with "For What It's Worth" still being #2, and "Speak Now" being #3 and her first single "Up the Mountain" is now #4. I guess there could be a lot of people who purchased the hard copy CD who wanted the full impact of the "explicit" version and were willing to pay $1.29 to hear her sing that one extra word! Personally, I still am amazed "For What It's Worth" is #2. I think she sings that song well, but I consider a number of the other songs on the album better songs than that one ("Speak Now", "Mine All Mine", "Holy Toledo", "Mason".)

Another topic this brings up about her album is the "explicit" labeling of the album. The only difference between the "explicit" and "clean" versions of the album is the one F-word ("f*ing sick and tired") in the title track. Personally, I am curious why she didn't just get rid of it and always just use the "I'm so sick and tired" line she has been performing live lately. The current clean version is just blanked out vocally until she sings "sick and tired", and I think the "I'm so sick and tired" version works a  lot better. I wonder if the "explicit" label actually helps sales, by showing she is "edgier" or more "aggressive". She also uses the "s-word" a couple times on the album, once in "Ridin With the Radio" and repeatedly in the chorus in "Kiss Ya". After her interesting lyrical "change up" during her duet with Alanis Morrisette in the season finale, I don't see why she didn't just clean up all her songs to be more "radio ready". I will give my suggestions here. In "Ridin With the Radio", she could have sung "the hits that they play now" which flows just the same and flows a lot better than "the crap that they play now" or "the mess that they play now". The chorus in "Kiss Ya" is a bit tougher. How about "I don't care a bit who's around" or "I don't even care who's around". I am not sure what having those "bad" words in her songs matters, but I know it matters quite a bit to some people, especially older folks who have a thing against bad language.

Full "Farmer's Daughter" video online

On a day when I thought the only new Crystal Bowersox video online would be her performance from Ellen, it appears that I was wrong. After FOX Toledo (WUPW) leaked a small preview of the "Farmer's Daughter" music video Tuesday evening, VEVO has posted the full video online and now, of course, it is also on YouTube. After her publicist, Gina Orr, had tweeted the video was not going onto rotation on VH1 until Jan 3, it seems odd that it would suddenly appear on VEVO. Is it a coincidence that this is happening a day after Hits Daily Double predicted Crystal's first day sales would beat Lee's and Amazon ran out of stock of the physical CD (as well as many retail stores in the Toledo area?) I am not sure if this is a predestined marketing tactic or if everyone in the industry could have underestimated her sales that much. I wonder if now that Jive realizes she actually does have a fan base they are going to try to do a holiday push to drum up more revenue. In any case the video is pretty powerful and reminds me of "Concrete Angel" by Martina McBride, but with a happier ending.

But she was on Ellen too, but after the music video, the live version almost seems anticlimactic. A great performance as usual, but the music video really shows her personality even more. I wonder if all those free copies of the album to Ellen's audience counted as album sales.

Oh well, my "American Idol" blog here has pretty much turned into a Crystal Bowersox blog. Oh well, I guess I cannot help jumping on the Mamasox bandwagon too...