Lauren Alaina's 69,000 album sales last week gave the 16-year-old American Idol runner-up the best first-week sales for any female country singer's debut album since 2006.
• After selling 205,000 copies of her Farmer's Daughter album, Season 9 runner-up Crystal Bowersox has split with Sony Music and 19 Recordings.
• Want to catch Scotty McCreery on tour with Brad Paisley next year? Here are the tour dates.
• Melinda Doolittle has a holiday tune called God Bless Us Everyone coming out Nov. 1. Listen to the tune, written with Reggie (The Time of My Life) Hamm, here.
• Constantine Maroulis will take part in Quilt: A Musical Celebration and Reflection on 30 Years Nov. 28 at Avery Fisher Hall. The benefit performance, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, honors the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the 30th anniversary of the HIV/AIDS crisis.