The second week wasn't a charm for American Idol 2 winner Ruben Studdard ... but his J Records labelmate Alicia Keys had another reason to celebrate Christmas this year.
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In the Nielsen SoundScan U.S. Album Sales charts for the week ended December 21, Ruben's debut CD Soulful, which placed first upon its release the previous week, dropped to eighth with sales of 245,000 copies.
Although this level of sales would often be enough to retain the top spot -- as it was for Clay Aiken's CD Measure of a Man back in October -- it was not good enough for the busy sales week prior to Christmas. Instead, Alicia Keys' The Diary of Alicia Keys, which had dropped back to second behind Ruben last week, regained the top spot.
Meanwhile, Clay's CD also sold more than 200,000 copies this week, its third best sales week in the 10 weeks since its release, but it only managed to hold on to the #11 position on the SoundScan U.S. Album Sales chart (for the third straight week). Nevertheless, its sales boost pushed it past Kelly Clarkson's Thankful for the title of "Best Selling Album from a Former American Idol Contestant" ... a title it doesn't seem likely to lose in the near future ... with sales of over 1.9 million units according to SoundScan, about 100,000 more than Kelly (whose CD slipped to #101 this week) to date.