Chris Daughtry News (Page 2)

The American Idol presence on the digital songs chart increased by one this week, as Daughtry's Over You joins the group. That gives him three songs on the chart, more than any other Idol at present...

• Over You makes a pretty low-key debut, entering the chart at No. 121 with about 8,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's further down than either Home, which drops 47-61 after selling 17,000 downloads, a 13.1% drop from the previous week, for a total of 959,000; or It's Not Over, which falls 93-104, selling 9,000 (-14.2%) for a total of 1.43 million.

• Elliott Yamin's Wait for You remains the top Idol download as measured by this week's sales, although it slips 24-32 on the chart and falls 21% in sales to 27,000. Total is 526,000.

• Carrie's Before He Cheats falls as well, 39-51, selling 20,0000 (-12.3%) for a total of 1.72 million.

• Kelly's still got two tracks on the chart. Never Again drops 69-81, selling 13,000 (-15.2%) and hitting the 800,000 total mark. Because of You, with Reba McEntire, falls 86-109, selling a rounded 9,000 (-25.1%) and hitting 100,000.

• Bucky's A Different World is also down, 127-133, selling 7,000 (-4.4%) to total 146,000. It stays just ahead of Kellie Pickler and I Wonder in total sales; Wonder now has 144,000 after selling 7,000 this past week (-11.3%). It completes a rather downward-oriented chart week for the Idols by dropping from 130 to 148.

Because individual label announcements of gold and platinum awards usually precede the official releases from the RIAA, this news will surprise few fans. But the June list of RIAA certifications came out today, and two Idols are on the album award list.

Daughtry's self-titled debut album, Daughtry, is certified for triple platinum (3 million copies shipped). It has sold 2.88 million, according to SoundScan, so the shipment-sales gap will close shortly.

Meanwhile, second album from Fantasia Barrino gets a gold award (500,000 copies). It has actually sold 431,000 and has been selling around 6,000 copies a week lately, so assuming it maintains that pace or close to it, three months ought to bring it to actual gold sales status.

If he were a race horse, Chris Daughtry would have finished out of the money in 2006.

While he may have failed to win in season five's American Idol competition, 2007 has been a year of vindication for the 27-year-old North Carolinian. His debut album "Daughtry" opened at No. 1on the Billboard 200, is currently double platinum and still riding high in the top 10 after 27 weeks in stores. By way of comparison, "Daughtry" is No. 6 on Billboard, while the 2006 Idol winner Taylor Hicks' self-titled debut isn't even in the top 200 any longer.

Moreover, when Hicks came to Milwaukee, he played the 2,500-seat Riverside Theater. On Friday, The Milwaukee Journel-Sentinel reports that Daughtry will headline Summerfest in the 23,000-seat Marcus Amphitheater.

Through most of the American Idol competition, Daughtry was clearly the judge's favorite, and he appeared stunned when he was voted off the show, finishing behind Hicks, Katharine McPhee and Elliott Yamin. At the time, he speculated his fans might have been so confident of his success that they failed to vote.

Obviously, the momentum he has built since then has erased most of the sting of that setback.

"I've been pretty lucky," he said recently by phone. "I don't feel I've had any painful moments in music. If getting voted off American Idol is the worst thing that happens to me, I'll be very lucky."

One measure of his popularity came when the established rock band Fuel, invited him to take over as their lead singer. Daughtry had won raves for his performance of "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)," and two days later the band extended its invitation to Daughtry to step in for the departed Brett Scallions.

Although flattered, Daughtry declined because "I didn't want to be a replacement for someone else."

One of the oddities of American Idol is that you can become famous very fast and be seen by millions of people but still be largely unknown as a musician because you're performing cover tunes often from before you were even born.

Daughtry was asked whether it was important to write the songs on his debut to establish his own voice as a musician.

"Well, to be honest," he said, "I don't think they care about you as a musician on American Idol. That's not what that's about."

Although ratings remained very high, American Idol came under increasing fire this year for an alleged nasty streak. Rosie O'Donnell took the show to task for its alleged cruelty and racism. Judge Simon Cowell was criticized for comparing one early contestant to a bush baby. Later, near the end of a "trick show" show on which no one was voted off because it was a charity-event episode, eventual winner Jordin Sparks was reduced to tears when it appeared she was leaving the show.

Although Daughtry has been too busy to see much of the 2007 season, he shrugs off the criticism, saying, "If you're on American Idol, you know what the show's like."

Who loves Chris Daughtry?

Here's a better question: Who doesn't love Chris Daughtry?

The song "Home" was the second-most-added song on the Christian Adult Contemporary chart in Radio & Records (which means five stations out of 54 added it). It also had the fifth-biggest increase in number of plays on those stations, although it still didn't make the top 30.

It should eventually do so, however.

Whether it was his intention or not, Daughtry conquers another musical genre.

Korina Lopez posted a review of a Daughtry concert in Washington on the USA Today American Idol blog. Here it is...

Chris Daughtry don’t need no stinkin’ Idol title.

His self-titled debut album, which sold 1 million copies in just five weeks, has far eclipsed the sales of last season’s winner, Taylor Hicks. And on Thursday night he was greeted by a sold-out crowd of fans from all over the spectrum, from kids with their parents to tweens to baby boomers.

His performance was solid and energetic. He sang candidly about past heartaches, dedicating tunes such as Used To to everyone “who’s had their heart broken.”

He finessed his rocker roar with enough pop melody to please both his rock-leaning fans as well as his pop-loving peeps with Over You and What I Want. Saving his best for last, he rounded out the evening with his hits Home and It’s Not Over, and the cheers shook the roof.

If there were a guide called How to Be a Rocker, Daughtry’s performance was flawless. He’s got a great voice; he’s good-looking in a Vin Diesel, muscle-bound sort of way, and his band played their instruments with aplomb.

So what was missing? While his performance was solid, it was also formulaic. He believably acted the part of rock god, wearing eyeliner, swaggering around the stage, reaching toward his fans' outstretched hands just far enough to brush their fingertips before he pulled back.

A couple of times per song, Daughtry hopped on what fellow concertgoer Alex Nicholson of Washington D.C., amusingly called “the awesome box” (a black box that he’d stand on throughout the show, like a mini-stage) as if to punctuate the highlights of each song. Sounds a little cheesy, right?

He also demonstrated a kind of arrogance that was off-putting, the sort of swaggering that works for the likes of Steve Tyler or Mick Jagger, and not (yet) for Chris Daughtry. He’s a long way from their rank.

What makes Daughtry so popular is his accessibility. His fans feel connected to him, having watched him rise from the ranks of everyman to rock star.

Let’s hope he remembers that as his success grows. And judging from the tattoo of DAUGHTRY across his back, he’s well on his way to becoming blinded by fame and forgetting the people who made him what he is today - his fans.

He lost American Idol and won the rock 'n' roll lottery.

Since placing fourth in the FOX juggernaut last year, Chris Daughtry has strengthened into the fifth season's gold medalist. Make that platinum.

Daughtry, the fastest-selling rock debut since SoundScan began tabulating sales in 1991, has sold 1.9 million copies in 16 weeks, and first single It's Not Over is a top 10 smash on multiple formats with sales of 871,500 downloads to date. His ballad "Home" replaces Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" as this season's exit anthem, sure to goose sales through May.

This post-Idol course, less a career path than his fantasy stairway to heaven, "has far exceeded anything I ever expected," Daughtry, 27, says.

The same could be said for a music industry reeling from declining album sales. It's now trailing 2006 by 16%.

Cynics may shrug that High School Musical kept registers ringing, too. In snooty rock circles, critical interest is of critical interest, and Daughtry's earnest Fuel-pumped arena anthems have generated mixed reviews. "Homeboy loves to rock," Rolling Stone sniffed. "Just because he can howl … doesn't mean he's not a cheese ball."

But online's All Music Guide praises songs that "not only follow the template of post-grunge well, they do it with better hooks and a commercial flair lacking from bands like Fuel and Shinedown."

And Entertainment Weekly, pronouncing It's Not Over "ridiculously catchy," describes his voice "a confident sultry growl that's not pitch-perfect, but pretty close."

Daughtry earned the ultimate badge of hipster cachet by drawing the ire of pseudo-conservative comedian Stephen Colbert, who denounced his rise as a sign of the coming "cultural Armageddon."

"It's bad enough this guy sounds like Creed without the Jesus, but Daughtry's success sets a dangerous precedent of rewarding losers," he griped on The Colbert Report. "America elected Taylor Hicks as its Idol, and we owe him our loyalty."

Daughtry is outselling Taylor 3-1, proof that winning isn't everything. Just witness Jennifer Hudson, who went from Idol reject to Oscar winner in one podium visit.

"I was cool with it," Daughtry says of getting the hook last May ahead of Hicks, runner-up Katharine McPhee and third-in-line Elliott Yamin.

As viewers clearly discerned, Daughtry was stunned. "Then I realized I was better off. It wouldn't have been good for me."

Losing "was the best thing that could have happened to him," says Mitch Allan, SR-71 singer/guitarist and co-writer of Daughtry's All These Lives. "Chris got booted off because America knew he was a rock guy on a pop show. It reaffirmed his rock status. He's not a pop tart. He's the new Bon Jovi without the hair. He would have been a rock star with or without American Idol."

Allan, who wrote Bo Bice's My World and co-wrote Bowling for Soup's hit 1985, also paired with Daughtry on the unreleased I Can't Save You, which is under consideration for a big summer soundtrack. Allan says Daughtry's authenticity wasn't damaged by his TV talent show blastoff.

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Will Melinda Doolittle or Chris Sligh one day be on this list? It's possible.

According to the March 10 issue of Billboard, here are how various Idols are doing on national airwaves:

• Daughtry: "It's Not Over" is down from No. 9 to No. 10 on the broadest Billboard chart, Hot 100 Airplay, but it retains the bullet that denotes it's still gaining airplay. It's up 5-3 on the Pop 100 Airplay chart (which takes out some of the harder R&B and rap titles). And he reigns at No. 1 for the second week on the Adult Top 40 chart.

• Carrie Underwood: Two songs moving up on the Hot 100 Airplay chart: the older "Before He Cheats," 47-40, regaining a bullet, and "Wasted," climbing 54-50.

• Ruben Studdard: He has two songs on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart:. The aging "Change Me" drops 22-27 after 30 weeks, a very solid hit; while the new "Make Ya Feel Beautiful" inches up 74-72 after three weeks on the 75-title chart.

• Jennifer Hudson: Her Dreamgirls showcase, a cover of Lakisha's "And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going," stays at No. 60 (with a bullet) on the Hot 100 Airplay chart;  it's thriving on the Idol-friendly Adult R&B chart, moving 6-4.

• Katharine McPhee: Not on the Hot 100 Airplay chart yet with "Over It," but it does move 38-35 on the Pop 100 Airplay list and takes a nice jump in digital song sales (59-46).

• Taylor Hicks: If Taylor's album sales fate depends on his current single, "Just to Feel That Way," we can just about measure the coffin. The only place the song is showing up is a fairly feeble 26-26 (with a bullet) showing on the 30-position AC chart, which airplay is clearly not selling records and is unlikely to do so.

• Kellie Pickler: Second single "I Wonder" is off to a slowish start, 43-42 on the country chart in its fourth week. But "Red High Heels" had a similar start and ended up hitting the top 20.

• Bucky Covington: "A Different World" is striving to beak into the top 30, inching up 35-34 after seven weeks.

• Kimberley Locke: "Change" is doing pretty well on the AC chart, moving 18-19 with a bullet.

• Josh Gracin: The first Country Idol moves 28-28, with a bullet, with the self-prophetic "I Keep Coming Back."

Thanks to the Des Moines Register for the following article/interview with former American Idol rocker, Chris Daughtry:

Tickets to Daughtry's concert Monday night at the House of Bricks in downtown Des Moines sold out in two minutes - 235 tickets.

"It easily could've sold out Val Air Ballroom," said Sam Summers of First Fleet Concerts, promoter of the show.

The writer of the piece caught up with Daughtry, 27, last month for a phone chat during a tour stop in Tempe, Ariz.:

Q: Why book a club tour when you could have filled much larger venues?
"I didn't want to forget where I came from. This is where I started, doin' small clubs like that. ... We wanted to do this first to kind of work on our stage show ... but it's more up close and personal with the fans, and it just has a good vibe to it all over."

Q: Didn't you recently switch rhythm guitarists?
A: "Jeremy (Brady) quit right before the tour started, and my buddy Brian (Craddock) from Charlottesville, Va., is the new guy. As a matter of fact, I used to open for him back in the day when I first started with my first band."

Q: You've been playing a new acoustic song in your shows?
"Sometimes, I'll play one that I wrote with (Fuel's) Carl Bell ('When You Come Around'). Another one I wrote for the album with Rob Thomas ('You're in My Hands') didn't make the album. We're just testing it and seeing what the response is with the crowd. If fans like it, maybe we'll put it on the next album."

Q: Who's on your wish list for collaborations?
"It'd be really cool to work with Chris Cornell. ... Of course, I don't know if I'd want to do that because he would totally show me up, take me back to school a little bit."

Q: What were you like in high school?
"I was an artist. Art student. Theater student, all that stuff. I grew up as an artist and wanted to be a comic artist for a while. Kind of got out of that when I got into music. All the stuff about the arts, it really interested me a lot."

Q: Were you cool?
"I had a lot of friends, I didn't have any enemies. I guess people have said that I was pretty popular. I just felt like I got along with everybody and had a lot of friends."

Q: Do you keep in touch with other American Idol alumni?
"I saw Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee the other night at Clive (Davis)'s party. They seem to be doing very well. I keep in touch with them and Ace Young and Bucky Covington and Elliott Yamin. I try to talk to all those guys as much as I can."

If you wish to purchase Daughtry concert tickets, click here.

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Chris Daughtry isn't burdened by heavy baggage.

The raspy-voiced singer, who last season placed fourth on American Idol, tells this week's Life magazine that when he hits the road all he needs are "a picture of my wife [Deanna], my computer, razors for my head, a Bible ... and I obviously have to get the clothes right."

He also wants to feel right, as reported by People magazine. Before each show, he says, "Normally I do pushups. I've been told that when you get the blood flowing through your body, you have more energy to sing better."

Though the last American Idol wrapped in May, Daughtry didn't sign an agreement with RCA Records chief Clive Davis and Idol creator Simon Fuller's label, 19 Recordings Unlimited until July. The result was his platinum-selling debut album, Daughtry.

"I'm just grateful I didn't wait for something to fall into my lap," he now says. "I took advantage of the opportunity."

Nor is the North Carolina native sorry he married at the relatively young age of 20. "I felt like I didn't need to look anymore, that this was the person I was supposed to be with. If you know that, then you just go with it," he says.

His children – Hannah, 10, and Griffin, 8 – are also musical, he says. "Absolutely. My daughter loves Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood ... There are so many singers my daughter wants to use me for – Hilary Duff, everybody in High School Musical, Hannah Montana. You name it, she's all over it."

Life is good for Chris Daughtry.

Not only does he possess the number-one album on the charts right now - he gets to hang out with a Grammy Award winner.

Here's Daughtry with Carrie Underwood, the latest American Idol champ to earn a pair of Grammy gold trophies. The future couldn't be brighter for both these stars.