Sales Already 'Falling Slowly' for Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox

American Idol Season 9 winner, Lee DeWyze, and runner-up Crystal Bowersox, are already finding out that winning in Simon Cowell's last season may not be all it was cracked up to be, according to MTV.

The viewer ratings were already a concern due to the show's trite formula and the feeling that the results were quite predictable even without the benefit of all the online polls and pseudo-experts trying to build up excitement. The cougar overtones coming from judge Kara DioGuardio over the third place winner, Casey James, the blatant favoritism the judges showered upon the winner, Lee DeWyze -- none of it was enough to draw viewers to the finale, which had the second-lowest ratings in the show's history.

Nielson SoundScan has released some preliminary sales figures on how sales are going for DeWyze and Bowersox, right after the season end, which should be a peak time for their songs.

But so far, they can't even come close to the figures racked up by Season 8 winner, Kris Allen, and runner-up, Adam Lambert. Lee DeWyze's cover of U2's "Beautiful Day" has sold a little over 95,000 copies, at least 25 percent less Kris Allen did last year, even with his sucky coronation song, "No Boundaries." (I still say he's cute as a button, though).

Nielsen Entertainment Vice President Chris Muratore spoke to USA Today about this sorry situation: "It's about half the sales total of Kris Allen and Adam Lambert following the finale last year," he said.

Muratore also noted that Allen and Lambert managed to place 25 songs in the top 200 during their finale week. DeWyze and Bowersox got a pitiful 9 songs among the top 200 downloads.

Of course, all this does lend itself to more arguments among fans, and I'm sure that a great many will feel the superiority of Season 8's numbers is all thanks to the very talented Adam Lambert, while fans of other contestants will heartily disagree.

Here are the numbers for the DeWyze and Bowersox songs in the top 200:

Lee DeWyze
63,000 - "Hallelujah" (#20)
44,000 - "Falling Slowly" (duet with Bowersox, #32)
26,000 - "The Boxer" (#55)
22,000 - "Everybody Hurts" (#72)
14,000 - "Simple Man" (#107) and
6,000 - "You're Still the One" (#192).

Crystal Bowersox
49,000 - "Up to the Mountain" (#25)
15,000 - "Black Velvet" (#102) and
14,000 - "Me and Bobby McGee" (#105).

These are preliminary estimates. SoundScan will reveal the final numbers later today.

Source: MTV: American Idol Champ Lee DeWyze's Singles See Slow Sales (6/2/2010)