Image Credit: Chelsea Lauren/WireImage
American Idol winner Phillip Phillips’ coronation single “Home” is enjoying a second life on the charts thanks to the Olympics.
The song, which was recently certified gold, posted huge sales in its debut week (278,000 downloads, to be exact) following his Idol victory in May, but like most winner’s songs, it fell quickly in the weeks that followed.
Cue NBC and the USA’s women’s gymnastics team, which featured “Home” in pretaped segments on Sunday night, and then peppered it throughout this week’s competitions. Suddenly, the track, which had settled into an 80-something spot on the iTunes chart, began a rapid ascent. By Monday afternoon, it was No. 6. By Tuesday, it was No. 3. On Wednesday morning, “Home” nabbed the No. 1 spot on the all-genre iTunes chart (sorry, Flo-Rida!), and it’s been there ever since.
A rep at Interscope tells EW that the track sold 105,725 copies on iTunes from Monday through Wednesday — a whopping 1,100 percent increase over the same three-day period the previous week, when it moved 8,814 iTunes units.
All told, it’s shifted approximately 155,000 copies on iTunes from Sunday through Thursday this week, and Billboard estimates that “Home” may sell as many as 200,000 editions in seven days, which could launch the song back into the Top 20 of the Hot 100 and give it a huge boost with radio programmers.
We chatted with Phillips, who’s currently touring the country with his fellow Idol alums, about the song’s sudden chart takeover and his plans for his upcoming album. Here’s what the laid-back Georgia native had to say:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you know “Home” was going to be used by USA’s gymnastics team?
PHILLIP PHILLIPS: I’d seen a while back when they had used it. I think they were just qualifying—there’s a video on YouTube [embedded below]— and I heard people in my management talking about it, but I didn’t know if it was a sure thing. Then, a couple days ago, I saw a lot of people tweeting, “Oh, it’s so cool ‘Home’ is being used in the Olympics!” We don’t really get to watch much TV, man, with the concerts every night, but I wish I could have seen it. I really just found out through Twitter and my management texting me. I thought it was really awesome. READ FULL STORY »
