Your Random Weekend Memo

Well, I sure picked a heck of a week to get ready for cancer surgery, didn't I?

Fortunately, the rest of the USA TODAY staff, notably Gary Levin, have picked up the slack to write about Jennifer Lopez's exit from American Idol. Also, AP has a story about early front-runners in the race to replace Lopez and Steven Tyler.

As you can tell, I'm significantly scaling back my Idol coverage as I head into Monday's surgery. I have also started a weekly online column called My Semicolon Life which began today. I hope you'll read it and leave some comments there.

In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy some better-late-than-never sales data for this week. I'm hoping, at the minimum, to keep the Nielsen SoundScan posts going as regularly as possible (although you can pretty much count on next week's post being this late, at best). Worth noting this week: Ten Idols make The Billboard 200, and Phillip Phillips' Home tops a half-million downloads.

Idol albums

Phillip Phillips, American Idol (20,000, debut, 20,000) (#25 Billboard 200)
Carrie Underwood, Blown Away (15,000, -4%, 617,000) (#35 BB200)
Kelly Clarkson, Stronger (9,000, +24%, 855,000) (#57 BB200)
Joshua Ledet, American Idol (9,000, debut, 9,000) (#59 BB200)
Skylar Laine, American Idol (8,000, debut, 8,000) (#64 BB200)
Jessica Sanchez, American Idol (6,000, debut, 6,000) (#77 BB200)
Scotty McCreery, Clear as Day (4,000, +25%, 1.083 million (#121 BB200)
Adam Lambert, Trespassing (3,000, -9%, 138,000) (#165 BB200)
Hollie Cavanagh, American Idol (3,000, debut, 3,000) (#176 BB200)
Haley Reinhart, Listen Up! (3,000, +33%, 44,000) (#190 BB200)
Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts (2,000, +30%, 7.216 million)
Casey Abrams, Casey Abrams (2,000, -45%, 7,000)
Carrie Underwood, Play On (2,000, +14%, 2.119 million)
Mandisa, What If We Were Real (1,000, +8%, 192,000)
Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride (1,000, +23%, 3.27 million)
Lauren Alaina, Wildflower (less than 1,000, 0 change, 287,000)
Casey James, Casey James (less than 1,000, +9%, 43,000)

Idol-related albums

One Direction, Up All Night (36,000, -8%, 935,000) (#11 Billboard 200)
Soundtrack, Rock of Ages (23,000, -18%, 156,000) (#20 BB200)
Various, Now That's What I Call Music! 42 (17,000, +2%, 353,000) (#29 BB200)
Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party (10,000, -1%, 2.671 million) (#53 BB200)
David Guetta, Nothing but the Beat (7,000, +86%, 345,000) (#68 BB200)
Tyga, Careless World (4,000, +11%, 261,000) (#109 BB200)

Downloads

Kelly Clarkson, Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) (39,000, +1%, 3.526 million)
Carrie Underwood, Good Girl (29,000, -17%, 1.186 million)
Phillip Phillips, Home (28,000, +17%, 523,000)
Kelly Clarkson, Dark Side (27,000, +30%, 118,000)
Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull, Dance Again (22,000, -20%, 894,000)
Carrie Underwood, Blown Away (12,000, +22%, 219,000)
Kelly Clarkson, Mr. Know It All (10,000, +6%, 1.554 million)
Carrie Underwood, Before He Cheats (9,000, -8%, 3.518 million)
Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood, Remind Me (8,000, +3%, 1.299 million)
Jason Aldean/Kelly Clarkson, Don't You Wanna Stay (6,000, +5%, 2.11 million)