American Idol fans are gearing up for the debut of season seven in a few short weeks. The two-night season premiere will be on January 15 & 16, 2008 on Fox. Sneak-peek photos from the americanidol.com website have been streaming in; this season promises to be one of the most exciting yet. Auditions were held in the following cities: Philadelphia, Charleston, Atlanta, Omaha, Dallas, San Diego, and Miami. My early prediction is that this character from the Miami auditions will NOT get a golden ticket.
In non-season seven news, season six winner Jordin Sparks’ self-titled debut album has set a new record. However, this is a record that Sparks probably didn’t want to lay claim to. After selling only 119,000 copies in its initial week, Sparks’ album has officially become the worst-performing debut album of any former Idol winner. Some sources are stating that Sparks felt her debut single, Tattoo, was too generic sounding and didn’t garner a solid listening audience. In addition her album doesn’t encompass a single style but flits about from pop, to R&B, to even a bit of country. Perhaps with a more focused attempt with future album releases Sparks will find more commercial success.
Season four contestant Jessica Sierra will also be reappearing on the small screen in January 2008. This time, however, it’s not going to be all glitz and glam. Sierra, a self-proclaimed cocaine addict, will be one of nine “celebrities” appearing with Dr. Drew Pinsky on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab.” Previews show Sierra trying to cope with the recent loss of her mother as well as her acceptance that her mother was both a drug addict and a prostitute. This is only one of the demons Sierra will face during the eight episode series. Celebrity Rehab will premiere on January 10, 2008 on VH1.
Last night was Latin Night on American Idol with guest mentor Jennifer Lopez. The show started off with Melinda Doolittle stepping out of her shell and getting a little saucy. As always the vocals were nice but overall I thought the performance was weak. Simon Cowell agreed and for once was able to say he wasn’t all that impressed with a Melinda Doolittle performance.
As you all know I’m a Jordin Sparks fan but last night I really thought she fell flat. She didn’t step it up, she just stayed in her safe little comfort zone. My favorite of the night was…drum roll please…Blake Lewis. Yes I have even stepped out of my comfort zone of usually preferring one of the 3 divas and have chosen a male performance as my favorite. Blake Lewis bravely chose a Marc Anthony (Jennifer Lopez’s husband) song; I Need To Know. He did a fantastic job, I enjoyed his voice, I enjoyed the performance, I enjoyed everything about it. Lewis went out there and kicked it up a notch or two and the judges agreed. Randy Jackson felt it was the “best song choice of the night…hot performance.” Paula Abdul called it a “very smart performance” and Simon Cowell agreed saying “best choice of song of the night, best performance so far.”
Who knows how tonight’s voting is going to go. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the bottom three will be Haley Scarnato, Phil Stacy, and Chris Richardson. Sanjaya Malakar made too many lovey eyes at the camera so we know the tweenagers of America will unite and ensure his continuance in the competition.
Tonight’s results episode of American Idol was done a little differently than the past few weeks; we were able to see who’s on top in addition to who’s at the bottom. Ryan Seacrest broke the contestants into three groups with Melinda Doolittle, Lakisha Jones, and Jordin Sparks making up the top three. The middle three were Chris Richardson, Sanjaya Malakar, and Blake Lewis. That left Phil Stacy, Gina Glocksen, and Haley Scarnato to bring up the rear.
After a performance by Michael Buble, Phil Stacy was informed that he was safe. Looks like my guess from last night was wrong. Now it is down to Gina Glocksen and Haley Scarnato with most everyone just guessing it was the end of the road for Scarnato. Guess again! Glocksen received the lowest number of votes after a wonderful performance last night and is out of the competition. I, for one, am surprised. I’m not a huge fan of Glocksen but I think she did a terrific job last night. She can’t be compared to the 3 Divas but she definitely did much better than both Phil Stacy and Haley Scarnato. Season six of American Idol is going to go down as a season of surprises
Even though both Chris Richardson had a great performance and even greater reviews from the judges, it is a girl’s competition this year. It is no surprise to know that Melinda Doolittle, Jordin Sparks, and Lakisha Jones were the Queens of the night.
Melinda Doolittle was the first of the three to perform choosing to sing “I’ve Got Rhythm.” Doolittle put a ton of pizzazz and personality into the performance, in my opinion she really let loose but in a good way. The judges agreed with Randy Jackson saying “You come out here every week and you give everyone here a lesson in singing.” Simon Cowell complained “I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to criticize you, this is a problem.” Oh grouchy Cowell, can’t criticize one contestant in the competition, boo hoo.
The next of the three to perform was 17 year-old Jordin Sparks. Yes I said her age as it comes up repeatedly in this competition. Her voice is so much more mature than her mere 17 years. She is a fantastic vocalist and phenomenal performer and tonight showed us again exactly why she is in this competition. She sang “On a Clear Day” and Jackson felt she was “like a pro.” Simon Cowell, while enjoying the performance, said it wasn’t as cool and hip as Chris Richardson’s performance; Richardson immediately preceded Sparks.
Lakisha Jones was the closer for the night singing an absolutely powerful rendition of “Stormy Weather.” Cowell felt it was “a sassy, great performance” and Paula Abdul said she sounded “beautiful.”
Tony Bennett was the guest coach this week and for the most part tonight’s performance should make him smile. Even Sanjaya Malakar went out there and had fun with it; evidently Bennett is a fan of Malakar. If I had to make a prediction about who will go home tomorrow at this point I’d have to send an instant message to Phil Stacy advising him to pack his bags.
Chris Sligh was a guest on the Fox News live desk this morning and sounded off on Sanjaya Malakaramong other things. He was first asked about his performance last week and he said “sometimes the judges have their opinion….sometimes I wonder if they were listening to the same thing that I was listening to” then he went on to explain how several professional drummers called him and told him that he was completely on beat contrary to watch the judges, and everyone else in America, heard. I feel like he’s still trying to defend his getting voted off instead of accepting it and moving on.
He was also asked what he thought about Sanjaya and the fact that Simon Cowell said he would quit if Sanjaya wins. The ever-cordial Chris said “I think that obviously Sanjaya is one step closer, I honestly think that of the nine people left honestly any one of them could win…I think that Sanjaya absolutely could win it.” What a frightening thought.
You can watch the entire Chris Sligh interview yourself over on the Fox News website.
I’ll be darned if the news surrounding Sanjaya Malakar doesn’t just get weirder and weirder. The latest to jump on the Malakar bandwagon isn’t some tweenager from Middle America, oh no that would be predictable. In a most unpredictable fashion, the newest Malakar fan is none other than KFC. Yes, the KFC that was once Kentucky Fried Chicken until they had to remove the word “Kentucky” from their name because it was trademarked by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. So what is KFC’s interest in Malakar, well its specific to his hair. KFC has offered Malakar a lifetime supply of their KFC Famous Bowls if he cuts his hair in the rather outdated bowl cut style.
Here is the letter that KFC published to Malakar:
“Congratulations on catching America’s ears…and eyes. Over the past month, you’ve wowed the world with your original performances. And, your ever-changing hairdos have made you almost as famous as KFC® Original Recipe® Chicken and Colonel Sanders himself.
On behalf of Kentucky Fried Chicken®, I want to serve up to you a tasty offer. If you don a bowl hairdo during one of your next nationally televised performances, KFC will grant you a free lifetime supply of KFC Famous Bowls®. We’re sure America will be as ‘bowled-over’ by your take on this classic look as they are by our KFC Famous Bowls.
From wavy to Mohawk to now the classic bowl – who knows, your bowl cut could start a trend as big as KFC Famous Bowls, which consumers ranked as THE most memorable new product of 2006.
In addition to free KFC Famous Bowls for life – if you sport a bowl cut, KFC will cut a check in your name to Colonel’s Scholars, a charity providing young people with much needed college scholarships. We’re confident that helping students afford college is something that even the toughest of judges would stand and applaud.” - Your Fan, Gregg Dedrick, President of KFC.
For once I’m nearly speechless; I don’t really know what else to say.
Ousted American Idol contestant, and part-time nude model, Alaina Alexander has signed with the public relations agency of M. Loring Communications, LLC. Mona Loring of M. Loring Communications says about Alexander ““I don’t think Alaina got a fair chance on American Idol. I think it is very possible that she lost votes because of her Dixie Chicks song choice—it was too controversial for the masses. Regardless, I know for a fact that the future holds some great opportunities for her. She is working on a new album and going out on auditions for TV and film.”
Alexander has her head screwed on right and seems to have a bit of business sense. Once she was voted off of the show she kind of slid off into oblivion until she posted some sexy photographs on her MySpace page. TMZ.com published the link and her site received hundreds of thousands of views in just one day. Her name was instantly back out there. Now she’s hired a public relations firm and has an *agent* we should definitely expect to see more from Ms. Alexander. If you’re interested in contacting her agent, she can be reached at (805) 231-3182 or contact@monaloring.com.
So what is the deal with Sanjaya Malakar? I read somewhere, forgive me for not remembering, that the Fantonellas are now Fanjayas. Nice, go from one suck-ass performer to another. I’d expect nothing less of course; I’m just hoping that no pictures of Malakar in a wet t-shirt prancing around a national monument crop up. Ohhhh, I crack myself up! To see an example of how dedicated the Fanjayas are to Malakar check out this post on the American Idol forums.
In other Sanjaya news reports have been floating around the Internet claiming that Malakar and/or his family have attacked Vote For The Worst for bashing their son. There is even a reported statement from someone “close to the family” rebutting the alleged verbal attack saying to VFTW to bring on the media attention. VFTW has come out with an official statement to the Malakar family.
“On the contrary, we think this report is fishy. First of all, a source “close to the family” means it’s not actually his family. We think Sanjaya is smart enough to know any press is good press. And secondly, Sanjaya has been embracing his VFTW-ness recently with fun performances, crazier hairstyles, and more sass.
We think Sanjaya’s in on the fun. So to the Malakar family: feel free to contact us, we love Sanjaya and we would love to see him win. The true haters are the people out there who bash him and say he sucks. Wrong. Sanjaya is the best thing to happen to American Idol in years, and we’d love to chat with the Malakars because we love them so much! Shyamali, Momjaya, and anyone else, you can contact us here.”
To end this update I’d like to leave you all with a little something I found over on JD Matthew’s American Idol blog. It’s a Saturday Night Live parody of our beloved Sanjaya and a few of his Fanjayas!
Chris Sligh did his obligatory “voted-off interview” this morning and actually said “I never came into this wanting to win it.” Umm, hello – why waste everyone’s time then. Why do something half-assed? Why did he say this? “I come from an indie, alternative-rock kind of background. For me, I think winning American Idol would hurt what I was really going for” said Sligh. So what you’re saying is participating in the competition wouldn’t hurt your indie-rock style but winning it will? That just makes no sense. If the competition is good enough for you to participate in without hurting your reputation then it should be good enough for you to win it. Trust me – indie rockers across the United States have already discounted you for participating, it doesn’t matter whether you were the ultimate winner or not.
What this sounds like to me is a 10 year-old who isn’t picked for the little league team he wanted and says “Well I didn’t want it anyway.” I’d have loved to see Sligh’s facial expression while he gave the interview – was he pouting? At one point in his interview he says, in reference to his band Half-Past Forever, “I think a door should open up for us… that would be great.” That’s not a surprise; America knows why you did it especially given the success of Daughtry. I don’t see much in the way of record-sales coming from Sligh and his band; it will be interesting to look back in a year’s time to see how this has all panned out.
Yes I am part of the Psychic Friends Network. I just posted not a few hours ago that I felt Chris Sligh was going home tonight and BOOM, guess who’s leaving American Idol this evening? Yes – that’s right – Chris Sligh. Okay to be exact I felt it was either Sligh or Phil Stacy, Stacy was in the bottom three (along with Haley Scarnato) so I was pretty accurate. Of course it doesn’t take a genius to guess that; Sligh’s humor has just been off as time progressed. His performances have been going downhill. His humility is gone completely. I’m certainly not surprised about his departure.
Another thing I’m not surprised about is that Sanjaya Malakar avoided the bottom three for yet another week. Perhaps it was his faux-hawk that kept him in this week. Of course it could also be the push by Vote For The Worst as well as Howard Stern to keep Malakar in the competition and push him to the top! What is known for sure is that next week we’ll get to see Malakar perform again; what is not known is how his hair is going to be styled.