Archive for January, 2008

Sparks delights in afternoon concert

American Idol Jordin Sparks entertained fans Wednesday afternoon and was expected to mingle with celebs through the evening at Peoria’s Skye restaurant.

The homegrown Glendale girl’s concert attracted a lot of the under-18 crowd. Okay, make that younger than 12. Burly security guards held back a sea of screaming 5- to 8-year-olds with “I love Jordin” signs.

Spark’s dad and former New York Giants player Phillippi Sparks said the afternoon concert was to give back to fans who helped launch her career.

“If it wasn’t for them, she wouldn’t be where she is today,” he said.

Sparks was joined by other 2007 AI stars Melinda Doolittle, Chris Richardson and Sanjaya Malakar. Doolittle, who arrived in the Valley in time to catch Phoenix Suns game Tuesday, belted out her anthem I am a Woman. Doolittle said Sparks didn’t have to ask her twice.

AZCentral

Fox beats competition with ‘House,’ ‘Idol’

NEW YORK — One of a handful of new “House” episodes burned brightly Tuesday, overshadowing everything else in the hour, and along with “American Idol” gave Fox a big win.

“House” (22.5 million, 8.6 rating/20 share in adults 18-49) returned in fine form, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research. “House” got its highest 18-49 ratings since May 2007 and was its most-watched episode since last March. It’s up 47% over its season average in viewership and 41% in 18-49.

An hour earlier, “American Idol” (28.1 million, 11.0/27) was dominant. A two-hour “The Biggest Loser” (8.3 million, 3.3/8) was down from last week but rose steadily hour to hour in 18-49.

Hollywood Reporter

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Tonight’s show begins with the obligatory Mimi Vice-like opening. Will anyone under 40 even get it? Oh wait, I almost forgot about that crappy movie. Maybe 5 people saw it?

Ryan explains that it’s the first time Idol has been back in Miami since Season 2. Ten-thousand auditioners show up in the Florida heat.

The girl who was supposed to be good was not, the girls who were supposed to be a joke, were fabulous… In fact, the girls appear to rule, generally. And there’s lots of kissing and hugging tonight. Miami is a love-fest.

And Simon calls Paula a slut, and asks if someone has spiked her drink! Good times.

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Idol Related Sales Numbers after the jump (Billboard issue date 02/09/08)

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Chris Bernheisel Live in the Studio

VIDEO. Plus, Hopeful Misses Cut on Omaha Auditions Show

KPTM FOX 42

”American Idol”: Husker Do’s and Don’ts

As American Idol enters the third week of its seventh season, it’s clear the show’s producers have taken into account all the criticism fans and pundits threw their way last year. As my colleague Jessica Shaw and I discuss in the most recent installment of Idolatry, Idol is packing its episodes with successful auditions, and that’s led to a precipitous (and applause-worthy) drop in screen time for elderly ladies in skimpy feathered dresses and dudes in lederhosen. Better still, the judges seem to have steered away from giving wedgies to 50-pound weaklings; I wouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t blame Fox execs if they wanted to roll out an end-of-episode tagline declaring, ”No person of diminished mental and/or emotional capacity was harmed in the making of this episode.”

Entertainment Weekly

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Have I mentioned that I lurve the new kinder and gentler Idol auditions? Well I do. Tonight could have easily gone the way of the freak showcase that the Minneapolis auditions turned into last year. But instead, the producers were able to showcase the bad and the weird without leaving a bad taste in the audience’s mouths. At least I felt good afterward.

Back in August, Senior Idol Producer, Patrick Lynn, confessed to the Omaha World Herald that he’d been pushing for Omaha as an audition city because of the movie his friend, Dan Mirvish directed, called Omaha (The Movie) Said Lynn, “That’s a great little movie…It really captures the quirky and off-beat aspects that make Omaha Omaha.”

I got what I expected–Omaha as a town full of quirky, yet likeable oddballs–living in the heartland of America.

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Chris Sligh (Season 6) has just posted his upcoming single on his MySpace. It’s called “Empty Me” and will be released to the Christian radio market on February 22, although many stations will add it as early as February 15.

A bulletin sent from Chris’s My Space today:

My first single, all mixed, all mastered, all finished is up on my space! You, yes, you fair friends, can head to my page right now and listen to it. It will both rock your face off and melt your heart. As my page says, it is like psychotropic drugs while experiencing Chinese Water Torture…yes, it’s that good.

Anyway, before I overhype it, you should listen and form your own opinions of it. Hopefully there are good opinions.

Also, remember the album will be coming out May 6. This is a must have for your vinyl collection. Well, it won’t actually be coming out on vinyl. But it will be a good add to your collection of musical masterpieces, including, but not exclusive to: Milli Vanillii, Jump5, *Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Hannah Montana. Don’t pretend like you’re not impressed.

Just buy the album.

But first listen to the single. You will not be disappointed. Unless you are.

Actually, I’d go with the “melt your heart” option.   “Empty Me” is a deeply-felt power ballad, about how fame can screw up your head if you don’t hang on to what’s real.   Chris sings like he means it. Definitely, Check it out…

Phil’s Pages: The first installment

Let’s start out the week with the inaugural installment of Phil’s Pages, wherein Season 6 finalist Phil Stacey kicks off a series of first-person accounts of his new, post-Idol career.

Hi! Phil Stacey here, you might remember me from the last season of American Idol. So much has happened in the last few months. It seems like ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s gone by so quickly.

The American Idol tour finished in late September. In October, I ended my active-duty Navy stint and ended up joining the Navy Reserve. I also relocated my family from Florida to Nashville, which was really cool. As much as I loved Florida, I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have any family anywhere near me. My mom and dad live in Nashville, and so do my brother and sister-in-law, and now we get to all see each other a lot.

You might have also heard that I signed a record deal with Lyric Street Records and have my first CD coming out on April 15. I met the folks from the record label while I was on tour and we talked about the possibility of cutting a record. After the tour, we decided to go ahead and do it.

Idol Chatter

American Idol support group

Leesa Bellesi threw her hands up in the air and prayed: “Here I am Lord, send me to the backstage of American Idol.”

She was watching Season 5 of the ultra-popular television show in her Laguna Beach home at the time.

It was her calling, she thought, “to minister to the needs of the people on that show.”

Several weeks later, out of the blue, a pretty girl named Katharine McPhee walked into Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena where Leesa’s husband, Denny, founder of Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, was serving as the interim teaching pastor. Katharine asked Leesa and Denny to pray for her à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’ as she was about to go into seclusion for American Idol.

After so many Idol encounters, Leesa is launching a website, aiministryresource.com on Feb. 14, the day after the top 24 are announced, to offer them spiritual encouragement and financial support as they sing for votes and a shot at a life-changing record deal.

“I think it’s great,” says Sligh, who last week flew from Nashville, where he is recording a Christian rock album, to stay a few days at the Leesa’s mobile home getaway overlooking the oceanfront Montage Resort in Laguna Beach. “To have people who are willing to come to you financially when you’re in that position; It is a struggle.”

OCRegister

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A snapshot of Idolsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ singles radio play culled from Mediabase charts as of this morning. Find out where your favorite Idol stands on the radio after the jump.

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Since all of this is embargoed until AFTER the show airs on January 29th…

On Tuesday, January 29th during the American Idol Omaha auditions show, you will see a crop circle stretched across 5 acres that says, ‘Welcome to Omaha American Idol.’ Swanson Russell Associates created it and now it’s American Idol’s ‘Big Reveal.’

They are now using it as the ‘cold open’ (shot Miami-Vice style) for the Omaha audition show on January 29th. The senior producer for American Idol calls the crop circle his ‘big reveal.’

PRWatch

Life after ‘American Idol’

Kyle Reinneck was recently showcased on the Dallas auditions of “American Idol” singing a song made famous by the original Idol, Kelly Clarkson. Now the Edwardsville native is feeling the effects of appearing on such a popular program.

But Reinneck, 20, said he didn’t even sing the Clarkson song, “Never Again” in front of the judges. He actually sang “Disease” by Matchbox 20. Before a contestant goes in front of the three judges “you have interviews and you practice in the room, but you’re in front of producers and at any time they can let you go. So that was one of the times (I performed) before (singing in front of) the judges,” Reinneck said.

He said most of Randy, Paula and Simon’s reactions — including Simon saying the performance was slightly demonic — that were shown on the program were authentic, however, he thinks the art of editing played a role as well.

Suburban Journals

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Reader and comment regular CarieB attended the taping of Paula Abdul’s video for her new song, “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow”, from Randy Jackson’s upcoming album Randy Jackson’s Music Club, Vol. 1. The video will debut during the Super Bowl pre-game show next Sunday.

Well, it looks like Pauler is up to her usual divatastic ways. Carie never got to see the taping. Here’s part of a comment she left in Sunday’s headlines post.

Just returned from the taping of Paulerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s new song with Randyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s band at Fox Studios. Guess what? I never got to see it. As it turned out, I invested 6 hours of my precious weekend time to stand outside in the rain, then wait in a room with a hundred other people with no seats for 4-1/2 hours, finally not being able to tolerate the looks on my kids faces, so we left.

Every once in awhile, someone would come in and say it would only be à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“15 more minutesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ , each time it took longer and longer for anyone to even come back and say anything to us. No food. No water. You get the picture.

They had us get there at 11:30 and then we heard Paula didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t get there until 1:00. Of course, thereà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s hair and makeup, and staging, choreography, lighting checks, etc.. When we finally left at 4:00, Paula hadnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t even run through her routine herself – it had only been done with a stand in and the backup dancers.

Damn. I owe you one Carie…

Don’t Miss…

Wednesday 1/30 - Kimberley Locke tapes an episode of “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” Tickets available at ocatv.com.

Thursday 1/31 – Daughtry performs on PBS Soundstage. Check your local listings for times.

Idols on Tour

Phil Stacey appears at the 99.9 KISS Country 2008 Chile Cookoff at CB Smith Park in Pembroke Pines, FL. Doors open at 8:30 am. 1/27

Jordin Sparks, Melinda Doolittle, Chris Richardson, LaKisha Jones and Sanjaya Malakar perform an informal acoustic show at 3 pm before the Jordin Sparks Charity Gala at Skye restaurant in Peoria, AZ. Wednesday 1/30

Carrie Underwood’s tour with Keith Urban opens at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. “Ruben Studdard: A Night of Youth Recognition” will be held at the Dunn Center on North Carolina Wesleyan College. Thursday 1/31

Kimberley Locke appears at the Dance Your Heart Out 12 dance marathon for charity. Mall of America. Saturday 2/02

For more information, check out the Idol Appearances page.

More Idol Concert Dates After the Jumpà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦

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Which missing ‘American Idol’ contestants deserve a CD revival?

Good news for former American Idol contestants still dreaming of chart success: There’s life beyond cruise-ship performances and touring productions of Beauty and the Beast. That’s because according to a story in Variety, Artists’ Addiction Records and Rocket Science are teaming up to release a series of four CDs that will ultimately showcase 12 different Idol also-rans non-winners singing three songs each.

The first, due in Wal-Mart and iTunes on Feb. 5, has Ryan Starr (season 1), Jon Peter Lewis (season 3), Stevie Scott (season 5), and A.J. Tabaldo (pictured, right; season 6), while the second, slated for March 4, includes Patrick Hall (season 5), Gedeon McKinney (season 5), Alaina Alexander (season 6), and Rudy “Free Ride” Cardenas (season 6).

Popwatch

More American Idol Fall Out

Michael Johns appeared on American Idol during the audition episodes as an Australian import but word on the street is that heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not all heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s cracked up to be. A part from being dreamy and having an amazing voice.

The story of Michael Johns stretches all the way back to 2000 when he first joined the band Film as their lead singer. Back then his name wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t even Michael Johns, it was Michael Lee. Since the band had previously been established Johnsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ was to attempt to learn the bands old material as well as to help them produce new, and original, material.

Buzzkilled

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Here it is.   This week’s Idol Billboard Update:

The Highlights:

• The winter doldrums continue for Chris Daughtry,  Daughtry and Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride.   Sales numbers are down -14% (19,395)   and -11% (19,208) respectively.  Ãƒâ€š  However, Jordin Sparks, Jordin Sparks is up 1% (12,569) and Carrie Underwood’s debut Some Hearts is up 15% (10,590) from last week! Interesting.   Blake Lewis, Audio Day Dream,  continues to slip, but only -7% (5,408)  this week.  
• Billboard 200 chart positions:Â   Daughtry (Chris Daughtry)Â  20 (19), Carnival Ride (Carrie Underwood)Â  24 (21), Jordin Sparks (Jordin Sparks)Â  48 (51) Some Hearts (Carrie Underwood)Â  57 (72), Audio Day Dream (Blake Lewis)Â  118 (111).
• Elliott Yamin, Elliott Yamin re-enters the Top Independent Albums chart at #41.
• While Jordin Sparks, “Tattoo” appears to have peaked on the charts (from 9-12 on the Hot 100, although it debuts on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart at #40)   Her new single, “No Air” a duet with Chris Brown, is climbing steadily up the charts.   From 69-53 on the Hot 100, 39-31 on the Pop 100, and  34-30 on the Pop 100 Airplay.   It makes a big leap–72-34 on the Hot Digital songs and debuts on Hot Digital Tracks at #30.
• Carrie Underwood, “All-American Girl” debuts at #91 on the Pop 100. It climbs from 68-64 on the Hot 100, 59-57 on the Hot 100 Airplay,  and holds steady at #12 on the Hot Country songs chart. It’s #83 on the Canadian Hot 100.  
• Carrie Underwood, “So Small” debuts at #27 on the Hot Christian Adult Contemporary chart.
• Mandisa, “God Speaking” debuts on the Hot Christian Songs chart at #26.   It sits at the #18 spot on the Hot Christian Adult Contemporary chart.

Here are the overnight Nielsen ratings for Wednesdays’ show, featuring the Charleston auditions.

On Wednesday’s ratings:

…”Idol” (26.8 million, 10.8/28) dominated the 8 p.m. hour; only NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” (13.8 million, 3.7/10) could muster any ratings against it in its 10-month high in the time period. Against “Truth,” only CBS’ “Criminal Minds” (12.9 million, 3.2/8) was somewhat successful against it.

I’ve started a ratings chart for Season 7. These numbers are final, and may differ slightly from the Nielsen overnights. Final numbers can be found at TV Week and the Nielsen website. Have fun comparing and contrasting Season 7 to Season 6 and Season 5!

Interesting, Idol’s Wednesday edition was the lead in for a new reality show called Moment of Truth. Truth kept 94% of the Idol auditions audience. Moment Of Truth had an average audience of 23.2 million.

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Carrie Underwood – All American Girl – Video

American Idol winner Carrie Underwoodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s video for à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“All-American Girlà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ .

Yeeha! Awesome. Loved this video.

Carrie youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re so pretty!

Rickey.org

‘American Idol’ controversy? Some viewers miffed, but it’s just business as usual

I just can’t believe all the things people say. Controversy!

Apologies to Prince for stealing his lyrics, but it seemed a fitting way to begin this week’s column on “American Idol.”

Yes, I’ve been watching the Fox TV reality series, although with a more casual eye than usual. Without a Birmingham-area contestant on the horizon — at least, none that’s been listed on Internet spoiler lists of the top 50– it’s been amusing to sit back and observe the early audition episodes filmed in Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego and Charleston, S.C.

AL.com

American Idol may be down (in ratings), but it’s certainly not out

Have you been seeing all the headlines ballyhooing American Idol and how the ratings are slipping and they’d better be careful. Did you know most shows erode viewers every season? This is the first Idol season premiere to be down from the prior year, so seven seasons in before premiere numbers drop is nothing short of extraordinary. And never mind that this year’s premiere reached an impressive 33.4 million, it was down 11% from last year.

TV Squad

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