Wikipedia article about how RIAA certification is determined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_certification
He sold 14 744 in the last week, which is a good increase compared to the 10 444 sold the week before, so he's on the right way, but his totals are only at 98 151 copies? That's a bit sad. If he reaches gold, I will be happy.
At this point, I'm just really happy that LLWD, which a lot of people were completely counting out, increased its sales by 4300 copies over the previous week, and that it went from being in the 130's on the iTunes sales ranking, all the way back to the middle of the Top 100. (Today it has dropped a bit, down to 71). The song continues to be added to radio stations and to get more airplay. (And there's a video now.) It's actually still being discovered and I think it will do better than the predictions.
As for Adam, his sales figures are going to show a big bump since the song is #26 on iTunes, currently.
He sold 18 397 copies of the single. Last year? Archie's Crush sold 166 000 copies in its first week and the much maligned Light On? 109 000 copies. Is Adam's huge fanbase a myth?
Frankly, I've always found it really hard to accept these figures at face value. I mean, I'm not disputing the figures, themselves. But there must be reasons behind them that haven't been taken into account. Did someone say that last year was the first time Idol singles were available on iTunes? Could that account for the big first week sales? The novelty?
I find it hard to believe that Cook and Archie were so much more popular than Kris and Adam that their sales translate as their having had five times as many fans, or more. Because that's how the first week sales figure out.
I don't really understand what it proves when people buy a song in huge numbers right away and then stop buying it as much. It mainly proves the original fans wanted it, but that it had to struggle to pick up new fans. On the other hand, if a song that starts out rather weakly ends up building over time the more people hear it on the radio, that would indicate the song (possibly the artist) is growing on people, which I think is preferable.
Of course at this time I can't predict how either Adam's or Kris's songs will do, so who knows? (Or if they'll have other singles that might do better, or worse, for that matter.)
Anyhow, back to my original thought. There's something else going on. Maybe more people are illegally downloading. Maybe more are saving their money and listening to songs on YouTube. Maybe last year there were less interesting new songs to choose from at this time, and less competition? I don't know. It doesn't really seem logical.
Of course it is possible that last year's winner and runner up were/are just much more popular.
Although.. I guess not for you 