"Taylor Hicks sells 298,000 albums on debut"

[dededom]

Hicks sells 298,000 albums
www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/16310671.htm

Taylor Hicks' album sold a lot of copies last week, but he couldn't quite crack the top of the charts.

The "American Idol" winner's debut moved 298,000 copies in its first week of release, a pretty strong debut. It was good enough for the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart, behind rapper Young Jeezy's "The Inspiration," which sold 352,000 copies.

Hicks is the second contestant from "Idol's" 2006 season to see an album hit No. 2 in recent weeks. Daughtry, the band fronted by fourth-place finisher Chris Daughtry, entered at No. 2 in late November.

---------
Comment from dededom: considering the USA has a population of 300 million, and Australia has a population of only 20 million, (actually 20,721,793 as of December 24th 2006, thankyou wikipedia), the fact that Taylor Hicks only sold 3 times as many (or put another way, Damien Leith sold a third of what Taylor Hicks sold kinda says something, don't you think?

[hyperrune]

Heh!
Goo to see an international perspective on Damien's success!
Hick's 'In the Ghetto' left me cold

[Mi chiamano Kami]

Yeah, I noticed Taylor's first-week sales statistics on Wikipedia and thought exactly the same thing! Damien has done very well for himself indeed!

I still think Taylor is a supremely talented man though - just not with the same qualities that make him as widely appealing as Damien is. When it comes to the voice and putting drama into the performances, Damien is miles ahead! Good luck to Taylor; I've listened to some of his original songs and I think he's going to do very well for himself once he wriggles free of the whole Idol thing.

[KrisLovesDamien]

ALL HAIL ZE DAMIEN LEITH! WOOT WOOT!!

[sunshine]

Damien is a much better artist than Taylor Hicks.
I look at those sales figures, and I think to myself that Damien could be a million seller in the U.S(particularly as James Blunt did so well this year). Hopefully, Sony BMG is going to agressively promote Damien and his upcoming debut CD in all the big overseas markets, starting off the UK in early January.