popularity x2

I really like the fact that this season's American Idol songs are on iTunes. It's not necessarily fair that they're raking in all that money... but it is good to get a preview of what the contestants' recordings will sound like. Even better that they're now doing full studio versions of the songs. I've realized that yes, I still do like David Cook (lots), and David Archuleta is cute but his music sounds very Broadway tune.

I hope they start early on recording original songs. That will really help us see whether we want to make a longer term commitment to their albums.

It kinda makes you wonder... What happens if one of these contestants' songs go gold or platinum. Would we (or they) even know?

Let's say, hypothetically, that you could run a general search in itunes for "american idol," or some other text that shows up in every American Idol song title. Hypothetically, then, you might see not only songs from the current American Idol contestants, but also songs from previous winners and runners up. Let's say, again hypothetically, that you right clicked on the column headings and turned on the Popularity column... which you clicked on to sort in descending order of popularity. What if (and this is a big if) you found that David Cook's version of "Billie Jean" was more popular on itunes than Jordin Sparks' songs "No Air" and "Tattoo," as well as Daughtry's "Home." Would you be impressed?