Clay takes on 'Days'

People reports that Clay Aiken will appear on Days of our Lives as himself. The mag says Aiken will perform Everything I Have "as part of a private concert for Steve (Stephen Nichols) and Kayla (Mary Beth Evans) in the local Salem club called Dune."

Slight correction

Many thanks to Samantha for correcting the first-week sales numbers for Clay's latest album: They totaled 211,000, not 205,000. (Not sure where the 205,000 came from. I'll correct the original post as well, but wanted to acknowledge the catch.)

Clay: Another wobbly sales week

Clay Aiken's A Thousand Different Ways could use a few new ways to sell CDs, as it bade farewell to the top 10 this week, falling from No. 8 to No. 20 on next week's Billboard album chart. To achieve this, it sold 39,000 copies last week, compared to 74,000 the previous week and 211,000 its first week out. Its total: 325,000 (rounded up), leaving its potential to reach gold (500,000) in some degree of doubt.

Without the turnaround that, at this point, probably only a hit single could provide, this album is becoming a non-event to all but the faithful. There's no real relevance to this next point, but it somehow feels telling (and kind of sad): Clay was edged for the No. 19 position by no less a contemporary superstar than Weird Al Yankovic.

We've all analyzed to death the possible reasons for these lackluster sales (compared to Measure of a Man's 2.8 million, that is; if Clay and RCA are content for him to become a solid-selling mid-level artist instead of a superstar, he's doing perfectly well by today's standards), but feel free to vent. I'll keep reporting the sales as long as they're measurable.

It's an open forum

Been reading a lot of comments about the post from Mike Maritz, the electronics store manager who chronicled the odd behavior of Clay fans. My apologies if it's bogus -- and Mike, feel free to chime in here and defend yourself and establish your bona fides vis-a-vis these posts -- but as I've said before, we're not about censoring viewpoints. The only comments I don't publish are obvious spam, overly crude content, spectacularly irrelevant or pointless remarks, and repeats. Obviously I'm not thrilled if people misrepresent themselves here, but it certainly can happen. I appreciate everyone's efforts in staying honest and alerting me to possible violations of the trust this blog's built on.

On a much less serious note, apologies to elliottfan for inadvertently transgendering her. It's corrected in the post now.

Aiken to be free?

Really intriguing range of comments on the general topic of Clay's album sales. It was interesting to see the widespread reports of insufficient stock at retail countered by Mike Maritz's fascinating account of Clay fans' misbehavior and multiple-copy-buying habits in his store.

I'm also intrigued by the anti-RCA and Clive groundswell -- the feeling that his label and its chief executive have betrayed and abandoned Clay. I'd be the first to agree that the covers concept for Clay's album was a bad one, as I've already stated (pretty courageous of me considering I'm risking the buckets of cash that RCA pours into my coffers, as Kathy apparently believes. Where do you find coffers anyway -- the smoking section in a restaurant? OK, enough bad jokes).

So Clive probably does deserve partial (or maybe even total) blame for the idea of the album. I'm more skeptical about the idea of RCA abandoning Clay, who has been a strong revenue-producing artist, but I'm not privy to the internal politics of the relationship. I will say that Clay has never been a slam-dunk at radio, with Invisible being the only real, across-the-board hit he's had, so there's no guarantee RCA could get a single accepted from this album.

Maybe Clay would thrive if he escaped RCA and made a different sort of album. But I think we also have to entertain the possibility that his fan base, though dedicated, really isn't big enough now to deliver superstar-level sales.

Unrelated answer to Lambert's question about Janet Jackson's numbers -- again, like Fergie's, they're discussed at the more general Listen Up blog.

Clay continues underwhelming sales trend

There are countless ways to spin the figures, and I've already read a few, but face facts, Clay Aiken's new album is performing sluggishly in the sales market.

Sure, the album sales market is depressed (down about 5% from last year and in a continuing downward trend). Nonetheless, Clay's 211,000 opening week was not the superstar number many were expecting (far less than his first album's 613,000 and even worse than his Christmas album). After all the mobilization among fans to hold special midnight sales parties and rally the troops to get out there and buy the album (one copy or multiples) in the first week, it didn't hit No. 1.

This week's total, 74,000 (good for No. 8), is not disastrous but not exactly promising. A 65% drop-off, while not exceptionally bad, is not all that healthy either. Justin Timberlake and Beyonce experienced similar drops in the last few weeks, but they sold a ton more in their first weeks (Justin went from 684,000 to 228,000; Beyonce went from 541,000 to 162,000). Here's some recent comparisons from artists closer to Clay's first-week sales neighborhood:

Fergie: 158,000 to 74,000 (-53%). John Mayer: 300,000 to 134,000 (-55%). Bob Dylan: 192,000 to 128,000 (-33%). Danity Kane: 234,000 to 117,000 (-50%). Outkast: 196,000 to 78,000 (-60%).

The long-term prognosis is dubious. You have to figure the hardcore fans have already bought it. So without some sort of unforeseen sales spur (like a massive hit single), it would be optimistic to expect even 50,000 sales next week. But let's assume he hits that figure. That would bring him to 336,000 for three weeks. Figure 35,000 the next week, 25,000 after that, 20,000 after that, and his total is 416,000. At that rate, he should be able to limp up to gold status after 10-12 weeks but is unlikely to get much higher. And for a guy who's sold nearly 3 million of his first album and more than a million of a Christmas album, that's a big loss of career momentum.

Clay on 'Larry King'

Today in Idol news:

-Clay Aiken appeared on CNN's Larry King Live Wednesday night and talked about his struggle with panic disorder, his new album and rumors that he is gay. Here's the transcript (with a brief intro regarding Anna Nicole Smith news).

-Olivia Newton John was a guest judge for Idol auditions Tuesday, and says she was inspired by the performers.