Comments on: Carrie Underwood Becomes Second Country Star To Sell Six Million Debut Albums

By: northtexas

northtexas — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:43:25 +0000

“Bill: Keep in mind that when she tried to get sucess without American Idol she got turned down.”

Turned down by who? From her bio:

Underwood grew up in the small town of Checotah, OK, and began singing with her church at the tender age of three. Throughout her childhood, she also performed at functions for the Lion’s Club and Old Settlers Day, and eventually at festivals in several states. Along with developing her singing, Underwood learned to play guitar and piano. She graduated from high school as her class salutatorian and majored in mass communication at Northeastern State College with an eye on a career in broadcast journalism, but continued her singing career throughout her studies. As a senior just a few credits short of her degree, Underwood heard about the auditions for the 2005 season of American Idol.

Doesn’t sound like she had ever ventured much outside of Oklahoma before AI.

By: Stormy

Stormy — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:15:59 +0000

Bill: Keep in mind that when she tried to get sucess without American Idol she got turned down.

By: northtexas

northtexas — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:43:45 +0000

Bill Steward…great post!!!
I think from now on whenever I see one of those “she owes all her success to AI” posts I’ll copy and paste your response!

By: Bill Steward

Bill Steward — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:48:31 +0000

Sally; I disagree with your comments about Carrie, it seems that everywhere I go there’s always someone who gives all of the credit to AI. It’s so obvious that they resent Carrie’s success because she was discovered in an unconventional way. If her success was only because of Idol, then all the other AI winners would have done equally well within their particular music fields, but this is not the case. I give credit to AI for discovering her but her success is from hard work, extraordinary talent and her incredible personality. You can’t take all of her awards and say it’s all because of Idol, and when you speak about the number of records sold you need to understand that she has a lot of crossover fans (people that Country musicians have always ignored before), I’ve read from fan after fan that say they’re not country music fans, me included, but we love Carrie Underwood. I believe her success will continue and her fan base will only increase as she continues to put out hit after hit. As far as singers being manufactured today, no artist has ever made it big without a lot of exposure but exposure alone don’t fill the concert seats or sell the albums, fans do this and Carrie has legitimate fans. Idol didn’t create her fans, she did, Idol only supplied the forum in which she could show off her talent. You show disrespect to her fans when you imply that we were somehow coaxed into liking her because of Idol, especially when so many of us fans never even watch American Idol and please remember that a large number of people who did watch Idol voted for “Bo Bice” and not for Carrie (I learned this after the fact.) What I’m saying is that she gained a lot of us fans the old fashioned way too, radio, word-of-mouth, “late night show” appearances. We didn’t know that we were supposed to already like her because she won Idol; we liked her because she was so talented. If the Country Music Industry had been paying attention, they would have discovered her years ago. Let’s face it, they dropped the ball, and now Carrie’s success has been unfairly deemed tainted (by some) because of Idol. The truth is, she’s just that good and only getting better!

By: Sally

Sally — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:04:56 +0000

Chris, who cares what you think about UP,. It still sold 15 million worldwide counted as one.
TAke a look at Garth Brooks double live. That is the most inflated album even plus Garth keeps releasing different covers.

And about debut albums. It is not imnpressive at all. Anyone who has AI support and Nashville support and hype should have their album do very well.Underwoods sales are not impressive at all considering the massive AI exposure that no other country artist has ever gotten.
It is about who sticks around longer not who has a good selling first cd.
The biggest stars in the world like Shania,Garth and so many others are the ones who build their fan base./
Nowaday they are manufactured.

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Wed, 30 May 2007 14:30:30 +0000

Oh, and the “Up!” numbers are inflated because the RIAA counts each unit as two. Off the point, but it always bothered me.

By: Brody Vercher

Brody Vercher — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:11:43 +0000

Thanks for the input George, but if you take a closer look we were talking about debut albums, and Kevin already brought to light the correct numbers.

By: george

george — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:34:05 +0000

You need to get your facts straight. Faith hill has only sold at least 6 million of an album one time.
Shania has 3 diamond albums in a row which is at least selling 10 million of 3 straight albums.
Shania’s world record COO album alone sold 38 million worldwide.

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:25:23 +0000

There’s a fantastic Casey Beathard/Jay Knowles song called “She Don’t Love Me” on BRC’s 2003 record “Time Flies” that I thought was a surefire hit. Now it turns up on Blake Shelton’s new record, so maybe it still will be. Not for Billy Ray, but hey.

By: Brody Vercher

Brody Vercher — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:08:59 +0000

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Kevin. It would have been more impressive if she was only the second country artist over all to do it, but nonetheless it’s quite a feat.