Zoom-in Online

This blog post was contributed by Max Willens, ZIO's Music Channel Assistant.

Don't look now, America, but the musical theatre geeks have taken over the pop charts, too.

As if American Idol, High School Musical and Fame weren't enough, The New York Times reports today that Glee, a new sitcom/musical series on FOX, is making a killing on iTunes. 

Almost ten percent of the online music retailer's top-selling songs are Glee cast recordings of established hits. These range from kinda-compelling mashups (Usher's "Confessions, Part 2" blended with Bon Jovi's "It's My Life", at #17) to impossibly cheesy power ballads ("Don't Stop Believin'", at #57), and the trend looks poised to continue; pre-order sales for Glee: The Music, a soundtrack/compilation of songs featured on the show, have already pushed it into the top 100 of Amazon's sales rankings.

It's not hard to see that Glee's success is tied to the musical mania that's gripped America these last few years. The soundtrack to High School Musical 3, for example, has sold over two million copies since its release last year, making it the third consecutive High School Musical soundtrack to go at least platinum since 2006. But Glee's use of pop songs - which the show often licenses at greatly reduced costs - positions the show for a much greater, possibly even more sustained run.

The wide variety of songs performed on the show gives it a cross-market reach that few other artists can claim; this week, the Glee cast's eight songs constitute a bigger share of the iTunes top 100 than that of any other artist. Just as a means of comparison, the Black Eyed Peas, who had the #1 selling album in the country until last week, only have three.

FOX has already green-lit Glee's second season, and it seems likely that it might even get a third. For anyone who loves anodyne, hammy covers of mainstream pop songs, we're sure they're tickled. The rest of us are jamming our fingers into our ears in protest already.