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Colton Dixon has a reason to celebrate this week.

His debut album, “A Messenger,” landed at number one on Billboard’s Christian albums chart.

The debut album is also number 15 on the Billboard 200, with about 22,000 copies sold.

Colton, you’ll recall, placed seventh on Season 11 of American Idol.

Heck, the show has had finalists whose debut albums didn’t land that high on the Billboard 200.

And, for the sake of comparison, let’s look at the recent Christian album release from Jason Castro.

“Only a Mountain” debuted at 14 on the Christian album chart a couple weeks back. This week, it’s out of the top 25. It never appeared on the Billboard 200.

Other chart highlights this week:

* Phillip Phillips’ debut album, “The World from the Other Side of the Moon,” dropped out of the top 20 on the Billboard 200, toppling from 16 to 26. He’s still had an impressive run at the top of the chart. “Home” remains number one on the adult contemporary singles chart.

* It took an awfully long time to get there — 34 weeks to be precise — but Casey James’ “Crying on a Suitcase” single is up to number 15 on the country airplay chart.

* Twelve weeks after its release, Carrie Underwood’s latest single, “Two Black Cadillacs,” has cracked the top 10 on the country singles chart, advancing to number eight.

The full chart rundown follows.