Idol Headlines for 08/01/09
American Idols Live tour recap in Atlanta at Gwinnett Arena
In past years, the pre-show audience would be tortured by incessant advertising, especially by the likes of Pop Tarts.
But Pop Tarts has finally dropped its sponsorship. And reflective of the economy, they were replaced by’ ¦ nothing. As a result, the pre-show consisted of more than 90 minutes of ‘Idol’ videos by the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Kellie Pickler, David Cook and Carrie Underwood, underscoring how many hits the ‘Idols’ have generated the past seven years. The only ads were for T-shirt merchandise and an iTunes pass for Kris Allen. Plus, they replayed a few of the Ford ads from the show. Any image of Adam elicited cheers far greater than that of Kris, like some weird concert referendum.
Anoop Desai will perform at State Fair
Anoop Desai of Chapel Hill, who found fame on “American Idol,” will fill the final open spot for performers at this fall’s N.C. State Fair.
Fair officials announced late Friday that Desai will perform on Oct. 22. Desai was in the top 10 on the most recent season of “American Idol.”
Tickets will go on sale at www.ncstatefair.org on Monday. Tickets for Desai’s show are $5.
He will join a lineup of performers at the State Fair that includes Kellie Pickler, Blake Shelton, The Temptations, Third Day and Julianne Hough. The fair is Oct. 15-25.
More Idol Headlines After the JUMP…
Michael Sarver: Backstage At L.A.’s Staples Center
My final interview shot backstage at the recent Idols Live Tour concert at Los Angeles’s Staples Center is with 10th-place contestant Michael Sarver, but ironically, Michael is the man who kicks off the Idols Live concert every night, performing first and setting the tone for the entire evening. That’s a high-pressure position for any performer to be in, especially at a gigantic arena like the Staples, but judging from Michael’s laid-back demeanor during our talk that day, he’s handling his duty like a pro and totally enjoying himself.
For Rent: “American Idol” Winner’s Apartment
If you ever dreamed of sleeping in “A.I.” champ Kris Allen’s bed, here’s your chance … and his wife is totally on board to let it happen.
Kris and Katy are currently sub-leasing their fully furnished apartment in Cabot, Arkansas for $600 a month, because the young lovebirds will be spending the next couple of months holed up in Hollywood.
Considering there are only around 20,000 people in Cabot … you don’t have to worry about a long line to apply.
American Idols Perform in Gwinnett
The American Idol Tour has come to metro Atlanta. This year’s American Idol winner and runners-up are playing to thousands of fans at the Gwinnett Arena Friday night.
American Idol Contestants, including this year’s winner Kris Allen and others in the top 10 are on a 50 city U.S./Canadian tour, got into metro Atlanta Thursday.
“Last night, for the first time, I went to a place everyone knows about called The Varsity. ‘What ya have. What ya have.’ It was very cool,” said Idol Michael Sarver.
‘American Idol’s’ 10 finalists converge on Charlotte Saturday
About this time last year, Kris Allen was getting ready to move into a new apartment and start another year of college. Now, the 24-year-old Arkansas native is playing arenas across the country.
But that’s how life can change when you, well, win ‘American Idol.’ After a surprisingly engrossing eighth season that concluded with Allen’s victory over glamtastic, superhumanly voiced Adam Lambert, the Fox TV juggernaut is again hitting the road with a live show.
American Idol review and rare photos
The highly anticipated American Idol Tour came rolling into Tulsa last weekend for a quick stop at the BOK Center on Friday as part of their incredibly successful 2009 summer tour.
Fans inside the standing room only show, which started promptly at 7p.m. and lasted for a good two and a half hours, filled the arena stadium with an eager excitement as they waited for a glimpse of their favorite idol performers.
Singer-Songwriter and Grammy-Award Winner David Hodges Nabs Sold-Out Chris Daughtry Tour
BURBANK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Newly signed singer-songwriter and Reprise recording artist David Hodges is set to embark on a national promotional tour with Chris Daughtry beginning August 2nd in Orlando. David is teaming up with Daughtry, one of his many song-writing partners, to play a series of intimate live shows in major cities. He will be performing songs from his new ‘The Rising’ EP, including the single ‘Hard to Believe.’ The EP will be released August 11th,.
Hodges is the first artist signed to Reprise by multi-platinum songwriter and American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, who is a Senior Vice President of A&R at Warner Bros. Records. The pair originally met as songwriters, penning a number of tunes together in 2007. DioGuardi called Hodges shortly after hearing some new songs Hodges had been writing. ‘She said, ‘You should be the one singing these songs,” Hodges recalls. ‘I definitely have scars from other artist projects that haven’t turned out the way I had hoped, but there’s something that keeps drawing me back to being an artist and not just a writer.’
Jordin Sparks talks about her new album ‘Battlefield’
Jordin Sparks is living a high-decibel life. She’s traveling across the country as a special guest on the Jonas Brothers’ tour, performing at arenas packed with girls who, as Sparks puts it, “scream way up here, and they just hold it for four hours straight.” And even away from the stage, resting in her downtown Chicago hotel room on a weekend afternoon, the 2007 “American Idol” winner is met with the shrill yelps of yet another fan. This time, it’s her dog, Maggie. These days, Maggie serves as Sparks’ main companion on the road.
Now 19, Sparks has grown up a bit, and she says you can tell from listening to her sophomore CD, “Battlefield.” She spoke recently with Melanie Sims of The Associated Press.
Pop Quiz: Jordin Sparks
While you’re sitting on the couch stuffing your face with cupcakes, Jordin Sparks is out on the front lines of the summer touring season. To get the word out on her second album, “Battlefield,” the sixth-season “American Idol” champ is supporting the Jonas Brothers across the United States, which means facing hysterical tweens, eardrum-shattering shrieks and a galaxy of personal rumors everywhere she goes. Fortunately, the bubbly 19-year-old Arizona native is taking it all in stride as her latest single, “Battlefield,” climbs the charts. Sparks joins the Jonas Brothers on Monday at the HP Pavilion in San Jose.
Country’s New Face: It’s Young and Blond
Together, Ms. Swift and Ms. Underwood began clearing huge swaths of brush out of Nashville’s clogged pathways. The duo, along with their fellow blond country singer Kellie Pickler, 23, the former ‘American Idol’ contestant and Ms. Swift’s best friend, were photographed together at a December 2007 Nashville Predators hockey game, making a public show of unity. In July 2008 the three appeared on the cover of Country Weekly magazine under the headline ‘Girls Rock!’
In 2007 Ms. Swift and Ms. Pickler were both opening acts for Brad Paisley; they also appeared in his video for ‘Online.’
Don’t vote off ‘Afghan’
Is ‘Afghan Star’ just a tool for Simon Cowell to build a bigger empire? Or is this documentary about Afghanistan television’s version of ‘American Idol’ a study in exporting democracy to countries where human rights, much less civil rights, have long been curtailed?
We see footage of Afghanistan in the 1980s, where women dressed in Western clothes and sang in rock bands. By 1996, under Taliban rule, music, TV shows and dancing were banned.
Cowell’s record label says Shaheen will not support Leona
Simon Cowell’s record label SyCo has denied that Shaheen Jafargholi will appear with Leona Lewis on tour.
Reports surfaced in various tabloids yesterday that the Britain’s Got Talent star would support Leona on her forthcoming tour.
But a spokesperson for SyCo said there was no truth in the rumours whatsoever.
‘Glee’ Cast Hits The Road With ‘The Gleek Tour’
This summer eight members of the “Glee” cast will be traveling the country on “The Gleek Tour” to meet fans, sign autographs and give a sneak peek of the new fall comedy on Fox.
“Glee” actors Cory Monteith, Lea Michele, Amber Riley, Chris Colfer, Jenna Ushkowitz, Kevin McHale, Dianna Agron and Mark Salling will be those on tour. Starting August 17 in Boston the cast will stop at select Hot Topic stores in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Washington, DC. With ten stops the cast will close the tour in Los Angeles on August 28.
‘Dance’ stays on top for Fox
“So You Think You Can Dance” was judged the winner by Thursday primetime viewers ages 18-49, according to Nielsen preliminary nationals, enabling Fox to score a victory in the demo. CBS topped the night in overall viewers.
“Dance” (2.5 rating/8 share in 18-49, 7.4 million viewers overall) appeared to decline slightly from its previous-week numbers but still came in above CBS’ “Big Brother 11″ (2.0/7, 6.4 million).
CBS nonetheless had the most-watched program of the night overall in “The Mentalist” (1.8/6, 8.3 million), which aired after “CSI” (1.4/4, 7.5 million).
So You Think You Can Dance Results: Melissa Down!
Thursday night’s “So You Think You Can Dance” results show opened with the top six dancing to “Send In The Clowns,” but the song proved to be most meaningful to 29-year-old ballerina Melissa Sandvig and contemporary dancer Ade Obayomi, who the ones eliminated from the competition by the end of the tense hour.
Here’s where I rant.
‘So You Think You Can Dance’ recap: Charm School
So what did I miss? I know I’ve been away for a while, off amid the Comic-Con throng and then fighting a wee bit of the nerd flu that has also overtaken our beloved Ausiello. (Thanks to my colleagues Mr. Stransky, Ms. Barrett, and Mr. Slezak for filling in so expertly in my absence, too.) But by now, I’m sure, Brandon, Kayla, Ade, and the clear frontrunner Janette are well on their way to the So You Think You Can Dance fina’ ¦what? She what?! I’ ¦I’ ¦what happened?! Sigh. Well, I guess three out of four ain’t terri’ ¦wait, WHAT? Evan?! Seriously?! I step away for three shows, and Janette and Ade are out, Brandon and Kayla made the bottom two, and Evan is now the only dancer who’s never been in the bottom two and must be officially cyber-slanged as “Evan FTW”?! (That’s “For The Win,” btw.) Has the world gone completely mad triple-question-mark-and-exclamation-points?!?!?
Kasprzak Advances to Final Four on “So You Think You Can Dance?”
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Having proven that he can dance, there is only one week of competition left for Illinois Wesleyan University senior Evan Kasprzak, of West Bloomfield, Mich., before he finds out whether he is “America’s Favorite Dancer.”
Kasprzak, a music theatre major at IWU, has spent the summer competing with other dancers from around the nation on Fox TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance?,” an American Idol-style show where contenders dance on live TV for phone-in votes from the audience. Kasprzak and his brother, Ryan, both auditioned for the show in the spring, but Ryan was cut right before the top 20 dancers were established. Since then, Evan Kasprzak has performed every week for a live audience in Los Angeles, and viewers from around the U.S. have phoned in their votes on Wednesday evenings.
New book on Theo Tams gives fans an inside look
Canadian Idol fans can now get to know their winner even better with new book “Theo Tams: Inside the Music.”
Ironically enough, Tams learned a few things from it as well.
“My first read through of the book was just so, so eye-opening. I really had no idea that these people knew me so well,” Tams says with a laugh.
With interviews and rich colour commentary from the Idol judges, fellow competitiors and host Ben Mulroney, among others, the book features personal stories and insights from some of the people who knew Tams best during his Idol journey.
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139 Responses to “Idol Headlines for 08/01/09”
I guess it’s Archie day on Twitter:
#crush is trending #2, looks like it may hit #1 and David Archuleta is also #10.
Plus people tried to trend #no4h8 and instead “No more emo twitters” got trended – now #5.
Oh, definitely not. Kim Carnes’ voice was raspy (and very much so). Allison’s is husky, and isn’t raspy other than on some occasions when she strains to do some really high stuff. I could not stand Bette Davis Eyes because of that rasp. (In Kim Carnes’ defense, I seem to recall reading at the time that she had some medical problem that caused her voice to be so raspy.) And in the small number of Kim Carnes songs I know (like, a couple or three :smile_wp:), I don’t recall her ever showing the power, range, or full-bodied tone that Allison has. Maybe there was something more in some of her other work, though.
Did anyone ever see or hear anything further about the band’s supposed live streaming show today?
Out of curiosity, do you still consider him distinctive vocally? I agree that he reminds me of Mercury and a couple others, but he doesn’t sound quite like them.
Also, I’ve heard the adjective “whiskey-soaked” or “guinness-soaked” used to describe female voices that are really deep and husky but not raspy exactly. That seems to apply to Allison, I think. When I first heard her, she reminded be a bit of Joplin, but her voice is beautiful in a way that Joplin’s wasn’t (which doesn’t make it better or worse, just different).
Thanks weareallinnocent for that David Cook interview. He’s a sweetie isn’t he?
Article in Disney Dreaming:
Today Twitter has been bombarded with users talking about David Archuleta and his hit song ‘Crush.’ Both #DavidArchuleta and #Crush have been trending topics for a number of hours ‘“ but why you ask?
Turns out that today is the one year anniversary of David’s song Crush. Wow!
We are so impressed that an entire 12 months later people are still in love with this song! That is SO rare for artists nowadays!
Congratulations to David Archuleta ‘“ in order to celebrate correctly we are currently listening to the song Crush. What about you?
^^
I loved how Shontelle was totally into it last night and today. Too many tweets to mention. She was getting all her peeps into it. heh
Also some cute tweets from AI peeps for him.
Carly’s cracked me up!
Syesha
Awe… @DavidArchie I’m getting ready for a show in 3 hours but I was still able to squeeze in 2 plays of #Crush… LOL You have great fans!
@davidarchie Check out this fancy dance video of us. Miss you!!! http://padackles1028.blip.tv/
Brooke
@DavidArchie hahaha!oh no,right after I sent the tweet I was worried that I might’ve accidently spelled or said something that I shouldn’t:/
And Jordin
^^ Ick! Quotes failure and it won’t let me edit.
~SIGH~ Season 7, those were the days, my friend.
Ozarka – I just watched that Season 7 dance video. Fun, wasn’t it? Still boggles my mind that Michael Johns and Cookie got in trouble with the powers that be for doing their little MAVID dances, which everyone loved.
What a bunch of robots ( :rolleyes_tb: @ simon)
That’s true to an extent. DAUGHTRY is still very much a chick rock band and a majority of their fans are in fact chicks (that span a wide spectrum of ages). But, the one thing that Chris and co. have been able to do that the other male Idols haven’t been able to is to harness the other part of the “Nickelbase” beyond chicks. DAUGHTRY has tapped the male “Nascar demo” more than any other guy from the show.
Now the audience at David Cook’s shows seems to look a lot like what you find on the AI tour– in other words, anywhere from children under 10 to older people in their sixties. However, I get a sense that this broad mix includes a great lot of boyfriends and husbands (and sometimes children too) who were “dragged along”.
And I think I can state with a fair amount of confidence that David Archuleta’s fan base is overwhelmingly female as well. And other than the Davids and DAUGHTRY, there aren’t really any other Idol-produced acts that are playing in the “big leagues”, anymore (until Kris and Adam release).
An important point got lost in the discussion about “frau” and “cougars”, how they should behave at concerts, and whether it’s appropriate to describe women with those terms. That point is that regardless of the answer to these questions, the reason that topic is even germane is precisely because male Idols’ fans are primarily all female. In the case of this debate, it is certain females who are having aspersions cast on them about their conduct at concerts, and these aspersions are being cast by… other females.
And for any male Idol, I think it will be hard to remain in the “big leagues” of music for an extended amount of years without cultivating a decent-sized base of male fans. Clay began his career like gangbusters but ultimately couldn’t sustain it because he never could grow his fanbase beyond his devoted following of “mommies”. Right now Adam and Kris start with the same base, the one which the Davids have struggled to build upon so far, along with every other guy from the show except Chris D.
In Adam’s case, I think he’ll find a lot of resistance fom the “Nascar demo”, but the X factor that could catapult him to star status is how much he catches on with gay males. Could he become a star or superstar with a combined block of his fangirls/ fanwomen and gay fans? It’s conceivable.
Kris, for his part, appears to have fewer dedicated fangirls than Adam, which is to say he appears to have a smaller number of invested fans overall. However, that actually could put him in a better position to draw male fans. It seems to me that Kris in the same position Jordin Sparks was in. Because he has less of a committed fanbase, a higher percentage of his fans will become fans from hearing his solo material rather than having watched him on Idol. So by not having as many Idol fans following him, which automatically would put him in a perceptional box to a lot of people, he may be primed to pick up the male Mayer-and-Mraz-type fans who might be more skittish about him if he had flocks upon of middle-aged women following him rabidly.
I am one of those fraun fanbase chicks who attended the Season 7 concert. I didn’t scream loudly or cheer during the songs. However, I did cheer for my favorites and applauded all others. How could anyone not dance at a concert? I gladly joined my daughter. It was total fun for both of us!
She did make one comment, “Mom why do you have to buy a Jason Castro picture. You have the Grandchildren’s photos!” Then, she laughed and stood in line to buy the photo for me.
So, there is a difference between a scream and a cheer. :razz_wp:
Far be it for me to begrudge people of happiness. Season 7 of AI offered me a bit of entertainment and an escape from “reality” after the untimely death of my mom. My daughter and I watched together on those long winter nights, and the kids and their music gave us something else to think about rather than our loss.
My opinion of the OTT fans still stands, and yes, those over a certain age who are “fanatical” are just odd to me. I’m not one that understands that level of fanaticsim. It is not a sweeping generalization of Adam fans over 50 or any of the Idol fans, merely the fans that are beyond “fanatical”. It is only my opinion. Truly what difference does it make what I think one way or another? If that’s their thing, so be it. My opinion won’t stop them.
Remaining in the “big leagues” is tough without a broader fanbase than the AI fans, that’s a given. It comes down to the whole credibility thing, being taken seriously as an artist and being judged on the music alone and not the whole IDOL thing. It’s a difficult task, but I think the success of Carrie, Kelly and David Cook, as well as, Daughtry have given a bit more leeway to Kris and Adam. True talent can not be denied.
There will always be those who won’t give these kids a break no matter how successful they become or how good their music or talent. I personally just don’t want Adam or Kris or Allison to be the punch line of a joke. OTT fans, whatever you name them, clearly are all about LOVE. But, sometimes LOVE hurts.