David Cook strikes it rich while Jordin and Blake were cheated!

Last year at this time I was very annoyed because rather than being able to relish in the American Idol spotlight for a little longer after she was crowned the Season 6 Miss American Idol, Jordin Sparks had to watch things fizzle around her. She, sadly, has gone down in history as the only Miss American Idol to have her first single miss out on being a #1 smash on the Billboard HOT 100.

This Is My Now debuted and peaked in the top 20 before quickly disappearing from the chart. The same was true for the first release from the Season 6 Miss American Idol 1st Runner-up, Blake Lewis. He even peaked one spot ahead of Jordin, but also dropped quickly. So here we are a year later - do we have a better understanding of what happened last year? The times, they are a changin. In the first 5 Seasons the Miss American Idol winning singles made it to the top based on sales of a physical CD single.

I must quickly take this moment to review those Billboard #1 Hits:

Season One: Kelly Clarkson - A Moment Like This
Season Two: Clay Aiken - This Is The Night
Season Three: Fantasia - I Believe
Season Four: Carrie Underwood - Inside Your Heaven
Season Five: Taylor Hicks - Do I Make You Proud

But in Season Six the music industry went through a change and physical CD singles were no longer being released. Jordin and Blake ended up being cheated because theirs were the first singles to only be available as an MP3. It's become the norm to buy music in the MP3 format a year later, but it was still kinda new and different for the American Idol music buying fans in 2007. They were used to buying a physical CD single in years past, but they were deprived of that option.

So we've made it to Season Seven and the American Idol fans have been conditioned to now satisfy their music needs with MP3s. We're past the learning curve and the music by the Season 7 Miss American Idol, David Cook has blown up BIG on this week's Billboard HOT 100. He debuted at #3 with The Time Of My Life which sold 236,000 downloads. While that's just a little shy of being a #1 chart topper, he makes up for it with TEN more songs also making it to the HOT 100! His chart success marks the most placements on the list since the Beatles charted 14 songs on the Hot 100 in the week of April 11, 1964. David Cook is almost as big as the BEATLES!!!

The next highest song for David Cook, Dream Big, charts at #15. Season 7 Miss American Idol 1st Runner-Up, David Archuleta also did pretty well this week with three songs hitting the Billboard HOT 100. His cover of Imagine has landed at #36.