Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Billboard updates its music charts at the end of every week.

Here’s the latest on where the former Idols stand:

* Kellie Pickler: Well, look who has a hit on her hands. Miss Kellie Pickler’s second single from her sophomore album, the Taylor Swift-co-written “Best Days of Our Lives,” cracks the top 50 this week on the Hot 100 Singles. And that’s singles of all sorts, folks, not just country tunes.

On the country charts, her album made the biggest leap of the week, bolting from 35 to 24. Wonder if that’s the magic of an appearance on Idol again? She appeared on the results show last week.

* Kelly Clarkson: Kelly’s fourth album, “All I Ever Wanted” is holding on strong after five weeks on the charts. It climbed two spots this week, from 14 to 12 on Billboard’s Hot 200. It was the number one album three weeks ago.

The single “My Life Would Suck Without You” also nudged up a bit in the last week, climbing one spot to number 11 on the Hot 100 Singles chart.

The second single from the album, “I Do Not Hook Up,” is number 46 on the Pop 100. It was co-written by Kara “Talks Too Much” DioGuardi.

* David Cook: David’s debut album is showing some staying power. It got a boost last week from an Idol appearance and the release of his latest single, “Come Back to Me.” This week it’s number 28 on Billboard’s Hot 200, after 21 weeks on the charts. Not bad considering David Archuleta’s debut has disappeared from the top 100. But David A. is appearing on Idol’s next results show, so it’ll be interesting to watch what happens with his chart performance two weeks from now.

The single “Light On” is number nine on the Hot Adult Top 40 chart. His new single, “Come Back to Me” debuted at number 49 on the Pop 100 last week, but slipped out of the top 50 this week.

* Carrie Underwood: The expected boost from winning the Entertainer of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music kicked in this week. Her album “Carnival Ride,” on the charts for 77 weeks, jumped from number 34 to 16 on Billboard’s Hot 200.

Her duet with Randy Travis, performed on Idol a couple of weeks ago, also moved up, albeit not quite as dramatically, from 33 to 29 on the Hot 100 Singles.

The single and the album are number five on the country charts this week.

* Jennifer Hudson: Her self-titled and Grammy winning debut album slipped from the top 100 on the Billboard albums chart for the first time since its release, but is still number 23 on the R&B albums chart.

She still has two songs in the top 50 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, “If This Isn’t Love,” holds steady at number 11 this week; and “Spotlight,” which is number 31 and has been on the chart for 48 weeks.

* Mandisa: Her second Christian album, “Freedom,” is no longer among the top 100 albums, but her first single from the album “My Deliverer” holds steady at its peak position of 13 for the third straight week on the Christian singles chart. No sign of fellow former Idol George Huff, who released his second Christian album last week.