What Was In The Water in Season 5?

While browsing through other American Idol themed blogs (it pays to check out the competition) I came across this list from rickey.org. It is the current list of top selling American Idol singers. The blog writer apparently borrowed this list from USA Today. The top 15 singers with the highest total sales are:

1. Kelly Clarkson (Season 1 winner): 9.4 million total
Breakaway: 5.9 million
Thankful: 2.7 million
My December: 740,000

2. Carrie Underwood (Season 4 winner): 7.9 million total
Some Hearts: 6.2 million
Carnival Ride: 1.7 million

3. Clay Aiken (Season 2 runner-up): 4.8 million total
Measure of a Man: 2.8 million
Merry Christmas With Love: 1.4 million
A Thousand Different Ways: 522,000
All Is Well EP: 53,000

4. Chris Daughtry (Season 5 4th place), Daughtry: 3.6 million

5. Ruben Studdard (Season 2 winner): 2.5 million total
Soulful: 1.8 million
I Need an Angel: 451,000
The Return: 236,000

6. Fantasia (Season 3 winner): 2.3 million total
Free Yourself: 1.8 million
Fantasia: 502,000

7. Bo Bice (Season 4 runner-up): 706,000 total
The Real Thing: 670,000
See the Light: 36,000

8. Kellie Pickler (Season 5 6th place), Small Town Girl: 702,000

9. Taylor Hicks (Season 5 winner), Taylor Hicks: 699,000

10. Josh Gracin (Season 2 4th place), Josh Gracin: 695,000

11. Elliott Yamin (Season 5 3rd place): 563,000 total
Elliott Yamin: 484,000
Sounds of the Season: 79,000

12. Jordin Sparks (Season 6 winner): 473,000 total
Jordin Sparks: 424,000
EP: 49,000

13. Katharine McPhee (Season 5 runner-up), Katharine McPhee: 366,000

14. Bucky Covington (Season 5 8th place), Bucky Covington: 317,000

15. Blake Lewis (Season 6 runner-up): 286,000 total
Audio Day Dream: 240,000
EP: 46,000

Of course both Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis will be moving up the ladder, but how far remains to be seen. As you can see her debut album Jordin is currently the lowest selling of the 6 Idol winners. While her album isn't really burning up the charts there's still time for her to get past Taylor Hicks.

Speaking of Hicks, I find it very interesting that this list is dominated by Season 5 contestants (6 out of 15), yet the winner of the Season 5 competition may end up with the lowest album sales of any Idol winner and, now that he's been dropped by his record label, that number won't be going up any time soon. Hard to explain. It's also hard to explain why there are so many Season 5 contestants on this list. Hicks and Chris Daughtry are perhaps understandable, but I'm not sure that any of the other contestants from that year were that much better than from any other year.