Daughtry is the self-titled debut studio album by American rock band Daughtry, the band formed and fronted by American Idol fifth season finalist Chris Daughtry. It was released on November 21, 2006, by RCA Records. The album is the fastest selling debut rock album in Soundscan history and the band's best-selling album.
"Breakdown", as it appears on Daughtry, is actually a rewrite and combination of two songs previously, "Conviction" and "Break Down", performed by Chris Daughtry's former hard rock/alternative metal band "Absent Element". These two songs appeared on the album Uprooted.
The first single released from the album is "It's Not Over", and fellow Idol contestant Ace Young, producer Gregg Wattenberg, and Course of Nature frontman Mark Wilkerson are credited as co-writers. On December 25, 2008, the song was nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2007, WWE used "There and Back Again" as the theme song for their April pay-per-view Backlash. In the same year, the song "Feels Like Tonight" was used for their annual Tribute to the Troops special.
Three years after the album's release, it continued to maintain a spot in the top 100 best selling albums. It is still being promoted, along with the band's second studio album Leave This Town. In 2009, ESPN's NASCAR telecasts used "Feels Like Tonight" and "Home" for promotions.
"It's Not Over" led the album release, and proved to be a success, reaching the top five on multiple charts, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 where it peaked at number four.
The next single "Home" joined "It's Not Over" on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number five and making Daughtry the first debut album by an Idol contestant to contain two top five Hot 100 singles. Meanwhile, "What I Want" was released as the second single (the third overall) instead of "Home" to rock stations, and reached the top ten on Mainstream Rock, peaking at number six.
The band's fourth single, "Over You" was released to Top 40 and Hot AC radio on July 24, 2007, peaking in the top twenty of the Hot 100. "Crashed" (the fifth overall single), was released in place of "Over You" on rock stations on September 10, 2007.
The sixth single from the album, "Feels Like Tonight", was released on January 8, 2008. The song became a top forty Hot 100 hit for the band, peaking at number 24. The seventh and final single, "What About Now", was released on July 1, 2008. However, the song reached the top twenty of the Hot 100 over two months before its release, making it the band's fourth top twenty hit off the album on the chart.
Competing with a flurry of releases during its opening week (Jay-Z, The Beatles, Johnny Cash and others), Daughtry proved to be commercially viable. The album debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, behind Jay-Z's Kingdom Come. It sold approximately 304,000 copies in its first week.
The album reached number one on the Billboard 200, with 65,000 copies sold, in its ninth week on the chart, for the issue dated February 3, 2007, becoming the first album from an Idol alumnus to top the Billboard 200 since Ruben Studdard's Soulful album in December 2003. In the next week the album fell to number three on the chart, but its sales increased to 80,000. In the following two weeks, the album remained at number three and sold nearly 80,000 copies each week. After this, sales increased to 102,000 copies, but the album dropped to number 9 on the Billboard 200; in the following week, the album climbed to number 2 on the Billboard 200 and sold 84,000 copies. In the next week, its fifteenth on the chart, it climbed back to the number one spot. It was then certified Double Platinum on March 7, 2007. The album was released in the UK on August 20 and debuted at number thirteen.
For the chart week of June 30, 2007 the album was certified 3x Platinum. The album stayed in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for 27 of the first 28 weeks of its release.
The album deluxe version was released on the chart week of September 9, 2008 and brought a 95% leap to the previous week. On Daughtry's 130th week, Daughtry climbed from 174 to 69, making it the biggest jump of that year.
Daughtry is the first American Idol album to stay in the top 100 for 116 weeks (2.2 years), and was the only debut album in the history of Soundscan to have stayed in the top 200 for 575 weeks, The album had sold 5,040,000 units in the US as of December 2015. and has been certified four-times platinum by RIAA. It spent a total of 148 weeks on the Top 40 chart.
Lineup
Chris Daughtry - Lead Vocals/Guitar
Phil Theofilos Xenidis [a.k.a. Phil X] (Triumph, Powder, Bon Jovi) - Guitar
Paul Bushnell (Ednaswap, Papagenius! & The C-Note Music Group) - Bass
Josh Freese (Devo, A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails) - Drums
Howard Benson - Keyboards
Guests
Slash (Guns N' Roses, Slash's Snakepit, Velvet Revolver) - Lead Guitar
Chris Chaney (Jane's Addiction) - Bass
Jamie Muhoberac (Red Bag) - Keyboards
Songs
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