Chart buster Scotty McCreery

Lady Gaga is getting most of the attention in the music industry today because her new album Born This Way sold more than a million copies in its first week.

But a young newcomer is making some noise as well. Scotty McCreery, the 17-year-old country crooner who just walked away with the American Idol crown, is displaying muscle on the Billboard charts.

The music industry magazine reports that McCreery's single, "I Love You This Big" has landed at #3 on the digital chart with 171,000 downloads (see video, below, of him performing the song this morning on Today). That number is considerably more than last year's Idol winner Lee DeWyze, who notched 95,000 downloads with his debut single, a cover of U2's "Beautiful Day."

Lauren Alaina, this season's runner-up, also surpassed DeWyze, with 121, 000 downloads of her single, "Like My Mother Does".

Perhaps a truer barometer of McCreery's career prospects is the fact that he landed at No. 32 on the Billboard Country Chart. That's the highest debut by a first-timer since this kind of sales data was first compiled 21 years ago. (Alaina landed at an impressive No. 49 on the country chart.)

In the past few years, Idol's retail impact has been overshadowed by Glee, which in just two years has surpassed the Beatles and Elvis Presley to become the all-time leader in charted singles.

That's a tough standard to chase. But McCreery (and Alaina) have not yet begun to sing.

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