Lee DeWyze might have an “American Idol” victory and a forthcoming album about which to brag, but he also received some disappointing, albeit expected, news this week–his debut single “Beautiful Day” opens at the lowest chart point for an “Idol” victory single to date.
Starting at 24 on the Billboard Hot 100, the song starts even less impressively than Kris Allen’s “No Boundaries,” which debuted at number eleven last year, and Jordin Sparks’ “This is My Now,” which kicked off at number fifteen in 2007.
To DeWyze’s credit, success for the single was inevitably going to be tough to attain. In addition to winning on a season in which viewership was down notably from years prior, DeWyze also was positioned to struggle due to releasing a cover of U2’s “Beautiful Day” as his debut single. While this was not the first instance of a cover serving as the coronation song (see Ruben Studdard’s version of “Flying Without Wings” as an example), it was the first in which the remade song was a mainstream hit in America. That likely restricted interest to that of a normal “studio” “Idol” release, and thus prevented DeWyze from receiving massive sales interest.
Other DeWyze songs debuting at the Hot 100 were “Hallelujah” (44), “Falling Slowly (with Crystal Bowersox)” (66) and “The Boxer” (88). Runner-up Bowersox, meanwhile, charted with the aforementioned duet and with “Up to the Mountain” (57).
As a comparison, Kris Allen debuted on last year’s chart with “No Boundaries” (11), “Heartless” (16), “Ain’t No Sunshine” (37), “Apologize” (66) and “Falling Slowly” (94); runner-up Adam Lambert started with “Mad World” (19), “A Change is Gonna Come” (56), “No Boundaries” (72) and “One” (82).