“American Idol” runner-up Lauren Alaina will open with a perfectly-acceptable sales total for her debut album “Wildflower,” but she has no chance of claiming the top spot on the Billboard 200.
Based on opening-day sales data, Hits Daily Double projects Alaina’s debut will sell 60-65,000 copies in her first week. Though down markedly from the first-week total for season ten winner Scotty McCreery, whose “Clear as Day” sold nearly 200,000 copies, it will be an improvement over the debut total for season nine runner-up Crystal Bowersox.
At that level, Alaina also outpaces runner-ups like Justin Guarini and Diana DeGarmo but falls short of the opening-week performances for Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, Katharine McPhee, Blake Lewis, David Archuleta and Adam Lambert.
Winning this week’s album sales race will either be Adele’s holdover “21” or Evanescence’s new self-titled entry, the latter of which is forecast to move 110-120,000 units. Five Finger Death Punch’s “American Capitalist” will be behind at 85-90,000, topping Ryan Adams’ “Ashes to Fire” (45-50,000) and Martina McBride’s “Eleven” (35-40,000).
In the “not-so-impressive” column this week will be Joe Jonas’, whose solo debut “Fastlife” is pacing for just 24-27,000.