Simon Says: Kelly Clarkson No. 1

Like her song says, Kelly Clarkson always dreamed of a moment like this.

The inaugural American Idol champ finally faced the toughest judge of all, the record-buying public, and the verdict was resounding: Her aptly titled Thankful scored a chart-topping debut, selling more than 297,000 copies in its debut week, according to SoundScan numbers. Clarkson's new single, "Miss Independent," has secured radio's Most Added and Top 40's Most Requested, too.

Clarkson officially made her retail bow last September with her debut single, "Before Your Love"/"A Moment Like This," topping the singles chart on its way to becoming 2002's best-selling single. Her album was supposed to follow in the fall, but RCA pushed back the date to insure higher production values.

Coincidentally, the new American Idol season two finalists' single scored its own number one this week on the singles chart over longtime lock Kid Rock. The new, flag-waving Idol single, a cover of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," topped out at over 100,000, which nearly equals the rest of the Top 100 singles sales combined.

But the Idol juggernaut doesn't stop there. Making it a triple play, American Idol was the most-watched show on television last week. And proving that Idol is inescapable, producers just announced a new summer tour featuring the second season finalists (minus the booted Corey Clark). The 29-date tour kicks off July 8, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and wraps August 31, in Anaheim, California, with tickets for the first batch of shows on sale this weekend.

Surely pained by playing runner-up to Clarkson, 50 Cent added yet another bullet to his chart history. The NYC rapper's new DVD/CD combo, New Breed, debuted at number two (most music prognosticators had expected the collection to top the charts), selling 246,000 copies.

New Breed features both an EP music disc and a DVD, allowing the release to be sold both in music and video bins. While the double-disc set opened in the second spot on the album charts (despite questions about whether it even belongs there with only a handful of straight music tracks), New Breed overwhelming took the top spot on the Music Video sales chart, dethroning the Beatles' Anthology.

Promotion of New Breed gave 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin' its own sales bump, up 47,000 copies for a 206,000-copy week at number five.

Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will, the group's first album of new material with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham since the '80s, opened at number three debut with sales of nearly 218,000. The group, which performed on The Today Show last week, starts back-to-back appearances this evening on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Country crooner Darryl Worley followed at number four with Have You Forgotten?, moving 213,000 copies. Although Worley didn't intend to release an album, once the pro-war title track became a radio hit, DreamWorks scrambled to compile songs from the singer's previous two albums plus a few new tunes while the time was right. Scoring his highest chart debut to date, Worley actually performed the new song live last week at the Pentagon.

Jimmy Buffett's own compilation, Meet Me in Margaritaville, scored the fifth and final Top 10 bow at number nine. Promoted with a blitz of TV ads, the new party-time anthology sold 127,000 copies.

The rest of the Top 10 were all familiar faces: Linkin Park's Meteora at six, Now That's What I Call Music! 12 at seven, Norah Jones' Come Away with Me at eight and Cher's The Very Best of Cher at 10.

The Easter Bunny apparently delivered a basketful of CDs with that Easter joy this holiday--every Top 10 holdover enjoyed a sales bump, and total albums sales were up about 40 percent from the previous week.

With the barrage of high-charting debuts, Celine Dion, Evanescence, Godsmack, Lisa Marie Presley and Ginuwine all tumbled from the Top 10.

Among the other chart newcomers, singer-songwriting Pete Yorn landed a solid number 18 bow with his sophomore album, Day I Forgot, selling 72,000 copies. Nashville's Jessica Andrews and Toby Keith also impacted the charts, with Andrews' Now opening at 34 and The Best of Toby Keith at 45.

Widespread Panic's Ball bounced in at 61, while the babe-fronted FFH (until now best known for a national Coke Cola ad campaign) scored a career-best debut at 89 with Ready to Fly. Fourteen-year-old country star Billy Gilman opened at 109 with Music Through Heartsongs: Songs Based on the Poems of Mattie J.T. Stepanek (apparently the kid's got good teachers), and Ziggy Marley's Dragonfly blazed in at 138.

Next week, expect Madonna's American Life to crash the charts at number one, despite a slew of bad reviews.

To recap, the Top 10 albums for the week were as follows:

1. Thankful, Kelly Clarkson
2. New Breed, 50 Cent
3. Say You Will, Fleetwood Mac
4. Have You Forgotten?, Darryl Worley
5. Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent
6. Meteora, Linkin Park
7. Now That's What I Call Music! 12, various
8. Come Away with Me, Norah Jones
9. Meet Me in Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett
10. The Very Best of Cher, Cher