Scotty McCreery's recording career appears to be off to a strong start.
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The tenth-season American Idol champion's "Clear as Day" album debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album sales chart this week according to Nielsen Soundscan data, Billboard reported.
McCreery's debut album sold 197,000 copies during its initial week of release.
McCreery's first-week album sales are the highest of any Idol winner since David Cook -- whose 2008 self-titled album sold 280,000 copies in its first week -- and the most of any finalist since eighth-season runner-up Adam Lambert, who sold 198,000 copies of his debut album "For Your Entertainment" in 2009.
McCreery is the first Idol champ to debut at No. 1 on the chart since Ruben Studdard in 2003.
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The 18-year-old singer is also the first country artist to have their first studio album debut at No. 1 on the overall album sales chart and the youngest man to ever top the chart with a debut release, according to Billboard.
"My head is just spinning," McCreery told USA Today about his album's first-week sales performance.
"It started out kind of low: They said 100,000 maybe. Then every day I saw the numbers climbing. It's wild: It wasn't a year ago that I was a normal cat, and now I'm number one on Billboard. It's insane, it really is."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski