David Cook’s Music DOs!
The Idol winner, who serenaded Hillary Clinton at our Women of the Year Awards and whose self-titled album is out now, gave us his favorite inspirational tunes.

1. “With or Without You” - U2
2. “Drive” - The Cars
3. “Stolen” - Dashboard Confessional
4. “Jaded” - Phil Marshall
5. “Angel” - Sarah McLachlan
6. “Hell Bent” - Kenna
7. “Dizzy” - Jimmy Eat World

Post-holiday shoppers snapped up Idol albums last week, leading to a nice bounce up the charts for the majority of our Idols. Read on for more.

It was a good week for most of the current Idol albums, with post-holiday shoppers using their gift cards to pick up copies. David Cook’s debut sold another 101,000 copies for a total to date of 812,000. This moves the CD back into the Billboard 200 top ten at #10. The album has been certified platinum (units shipped) and David was given a plaque live on Fox’s New Year’s Eve show. The album moves up two spots to #3 on Top Rock Albums and is #15 on Top Internet Albums.

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I just added two outtakes from VH1’s shoot. Enjoy (:

GALLERY LINK:
- VH1 shoot

Nothing about 2008 was predictable, but there were some definite themes in the way Americans used the Internet search engine Google during the last 12 months.
Not surprisingly, “obama” (for none other than the president-elect himself), was the number one, fastest-rising search term last year, according to Google. His Republican counterpart, McCain, didn’t make the top 10, but the champion of Joe Six Pack, Sarah Palin, did. She nabbed the number 7 spot.
Google compiles its annual “zeitgeist” lists by culliing data from the millions of search terms people plug into its search bar throughout the year. For its fastest rising lists, Google compares search activity from one year to the year prior to see what’s gaining favor with Internet users.
The remainder of the top 10 in 2008 was decidedly apolitical with a digital bent. The social networking site Facebook secured the second spot on the fastest rising list, followed by “att”, “iphone”, and “youtube”. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News came in sixth, while the Beijing Olympics came in eigth. The top 10 was rounded out by American Idol winner David Cook and Surf the Channel, a newer web site that catalogues online videos, including TV programs.
Google.com Fastest Rising Search Terms of 2008

1. obama
2. facebook
3. att
4. iphone
5. youtube
6. fox news
7. palin
8. beijing 2008
9. david cook
10. surf the channel

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Nielsen SoundScan, the entertainment industry’s data information system that tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, Nielsen BDS, the music industry’s leading music performance monitoring service, and Nielsen RingScan, which tracks mobile ringtone purchases, have announced their 2008 U.S. year-end sales and performance monitoring data for the 52-week period December 31, 2007 through December 28, 2008.

Top Ten selling Albums during 2008 Holiday Season (11/17/2008-12/28/2008)

2008 Top Ten Internet Albums (12/31/2007-12/28/2008)

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