Idol Chatter & Voice Views

American Idol contestant Chayce Beckham has scored something of an Apple Music hit with his great original song “23.”

The superb self-penned, autobiographical tune is the “winner’s single” he will perform on the show Sunday as Idol cuts its filed from a Top 4 to three finalists.

Idol has released singles for each of the Top 4 contestants, plus Hunter Metts and Arthur Gunn, who were eliminated last week.

Caleb Kennedy also recorded a single called “Raise on Dirt.” But it will not be released since he was removed from the show when a controversial video surfaced.

Of the four singers remaining in the competition, Chayce has far and away the best performing single on Apple Music.

As of midnight eastern time, 24 hours after its release, “23” was sitting at 33 on Apple Music’s overall singles chart. It was sitting at number 5 on the site’s country music charts.

Update: As of Sunday 7 p.m. eastern time, Chayce was number 11 on the overall chart and number one on the country singles chart! None of the other Season 19 semifinalists were still in the Top 200 on the overall chart.

Interestingly, the next two highest charting songs at midnight Friday were the ones coming from singers no longer in the competition. Arthur Gunn was at number 58 with “Save Me Now.” Hunter Metts was at number 83 with “20,000 Kisses.”

As for those still remaining in the competition?

Grace Kinstler was at 99 with “Love Someone.” Casey Bishop was at number 175 with “Love Me Leave Me.”

Willie Spence failed to crack the overall Apple Music chart with “Never Be Alone,” but was sitting at number 16 on the much, much easier to scale R&B singles chart.

What do those numbers mean?

Well, there was a time when Apple Music rankings were a wonderful indicator of who would advance and who would be eliminated on The Voice.

But that was when downloads and streams counted as votes and when the songs were released to only one music service.

The Idol singles are available on Spotify too. And they’ve been posted to the American Idol YouTube channel.

There, Grace Kinstler had the most views as of midnight (48,280), followed by Willie with 46,060, Casey with 38,321 and then Chayce with 35,400.

In case you haven’t heard them yet, here are those four singles.