Pres. Obama namedropped “American Idol” and Simon Cowell in context to the environment in Washington D.C. to Jay Leno yesterday:

D.C. “is a bit like ‘American Idol’ except everybody’s Simon Cowell. Everybody’s got an opinion,” he said.

Sadly, Leno did not ask him who he thought could win this year (though he thinks the Tar Heels will win March Madness.)

- I interviewed fellow diabetic and season five finalist Elliott Yamin this morning at the Starbucks next to the W Hotel in Buckhead. He’s in town to do some promotion with Q100 and Star 94, plus me. He was as bleary eyed as I was. I’ll post the details closer to the day of his album, which comes out May 5. His new single “Fight For Love” hit radio March 10. It was written by Atlanta songwriter Johnta Austin. It’s too early to say if it’s going to be a hit but I like it. He doesn’t pay any real attention to the current “Idol” season so I didn’t ask him about it. But he hopes to get one of those coveted “results …

Continue reading 3/20: Obama name drops American Idol »

In the mass phone press conference today,Alexis Grace was gracious, of course, in defeat, disappointed naturally. “I imagined going further than that,” she acknowledged.

She figured she wasn’t saved because “it is really early in the game. It wouldn’t be good for TV if they did it so early.”

If she hadn’t sung “Jolene,” she had considered a Carrie Underwood song but two others were doing Carrie songs already. Why “Jolene”?”It’s a beautiful song. I like the song. It was a good song for me to do.”

For reasons unstated, she didn’t get a farewell dinner, a tradition on “Idol.” (It appears the remaining ten had to fly to Detroit to film some stuff about Motown for the theme week. They do have an extra day to prep, thanks to Obama’s speech Tuesday.) She had a sense she’d be in the bottom three. She also would have loved to have sung another song besides “Jolene” to save her life.

On not making the tour: “I’m really disappointed. I would have loved to have gone on tour.”

Dream …

Continue reading 3/19: Exit interview with Alexis Grace, Ruben on results show next week »

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Oh, boy. The shocker happened early! Alexis Grace had the fewest votes for no particular reason. She is clearly one of the stronger contestants and deserves to be in the top 10 for sure and ensure a spot on the “American Idol” tour. Sure, her “Jolene” wasn’t great but it wasn’t the worst either. The teen gals must be voting for the Danny/Anoop/Kris types and the women are getting screwed.

“You were the one we’re thinking about saving. It’s all going to come down to this performance,” Simon said.

She is truly singing for her life. She’s missing notes galore but she’s singing with passion as the judges convene. Her performance was too sloppy for their taste. They let her go! What the…? She should have been saved. Seriously.

Props, by the …

Continue reading 3/18: American Idol recap, top 11 elimination round – Alexis Grace cut! And not saved!!! »

Last week, I predicted Kelly Clarkson would sell 250,000 copies in her first week of “All I Ever Wanted.” Final tally: 254,671, 70,000 digitally. I was close! It’s comparable to her last album “My December,” which sold 291,000 its first week. In this day and age when CD sales are dropping fast, that’s not bad.

Her single “My Life Would Suck Without You,” I figured, would go No. 1 on the top 40 charts but now I’m not so sure now. Flo Rida’s “Right Round” leapfrogged it so it may end up peaking at No. 3. All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell” is also hot. That’s airplay only. The song did go No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 1.2 million-plus in download sales.

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Taylor Hicks’ new independently released album sold just 9,000. The first …

Continue reading 3/18: Mid-day report with Kelly Clarkson’s first week sales, Idol ratings down, Idol trading cards, Megan Joy Corkrey poll »

Just came back from learning how to play mah jong. I’m way late blogging tonight. I’m going to do a quick and dirty watch through of the performances only, skipping all the other dross to get my rankings in.

Nashville rolled in and there were no disastrous “Beat It”-level performances. (Sadly, nobody picked “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.”)

Megan went from caw, caw to cough, cough – but in a good way. Anoop went from bad to pretty darn good. Allison showed she could actually do country. We get a double shot of Carrie covers. And Adam just put his own strange spin on Johnny Cash, which I dug (though I’m sure a lot of people didn’t.)

My brave predictions (before checking dialidol.com):

Who will be in the bottom three? Michael Sarver, Scott MacInytre, Kris Allen

Who will go home? Michael Sarver

Who should go home? Scott MacIntyre

My rankings: 1- Allison 2- Adam 3- Megan 4- Matt 5- Anoop 6- Kris 7 – Danny 8 – Lil Rounds 9- Alexis 10- Michael 11- Scott

Early dialidol numbers indicate …

Continue reading 3/17: American Idol recap, top 11, country week– zero to hero? »

I don’t have much this morning. I’ll add more later if I get it. Ryan Seacrest in yesterday’s Oprah gave a “behind the scene” tour of the “Idol” set. We get to see Ryan’s modest dressing room and lots of promo blather:

-MJ found a site (www.bettingonline.com) pulling betting on “Idol” contestants thanks to the “veto” rule because it could cause “insider trading.” It does complicate any “Idol” pools people have created if the judges choose to use it any time.

-Q100’s Bert Show did a 7 minute interview this morning with Jorge Nunez and got nothing interesting to say. He wasn’t willing to say who he was attracted to or say anything bad about his fellow contestants. Bert was so frustrated, he took his shoe and banged it into the mike. It didn’t sound as bad as they thought.

Continue reading 3/17: Idol on Oprah, betting site kills “Idol” pool after veto rule »

Vote For the Worst has linked to a leaked list of songs the Idol contestants can choose from to sing this week for country week based on artists who are now Grand Ol Opry members. I know that they can choose songs outside this list but there is always the risk the song won’t get cleared. The list includes the some obvious suspect artists such as Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, Hank Williams, George Jones, Martina McBride, Randy Travis and Patsy Cline. Oh, and the Georgians or former Georgians? Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Travis Tritt. I won’t list it but you can find the list at Vote for the Worst. And here are all the living Opry members.

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And though there are no obvious country artists among the …

Continue reading 3/16: Country spoilers, Kelly Clarkson on SNL, Clay Aiken on “30 Rock,” Christians in the top 11 »

I forgot to mention earlier that the one-time “veto” power is only good
outside the top 5 so using examples such as Daughtry and Tamyra Gray is false. Folks like Constantine, Jennifer Hudson and Michael Johns, though, could have been saved.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I spoke with Justin Guarini, whose stint on “Gone Country 3″ recently ended and is now co-hosting the weekly “Idol Tonight” on TV Guide Channel again with season two finalist and former David Cook squeeze Kimberly Caldwell (at 8 p.m. Wednesdays before the results show) And he’s vlogging about “Idol” at fancast.com. Here’s what he said about the results show:

“Thinking instead of performing,” he said of Jorge’s problem since he had to sing in English, not Spanish.

Anyway, Justin said he had a great time doing “Gone Country” on CMT. He especially enjoyed connecting with all the great songwriters in Nashville. “I got the experience to continue with music. It’s certainly been a challenging road for me,” he said. His …

Continue reading 3/13: Interview with Justin Guarini, Diana DeGarmo’s new EP »

It never crossed my mind but some idiots on the Web thought Kelly Clarkson was sporting a baby bump last night. Huh? Really?

Here’s the Daily News take on things:

A Clarkson rep at her record label RCA – a division of Sony Music – tells the Daily News the buzz is dead wrong: “She is not pregnant.

Case closed. Geez, people!

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-Country theme week next week with songs popularized by members of the Grand ol’ Opry. There are no pure country singers in this crew (with the likes of Brent Keith and Kendall Beard failing to make it past the semifinal round.) Who might thrive? Who might fail miserably? I can’t wait to see Adam Lambert try out a country song! Or Allison Iraheta… Randy …

Continue reading 3/12: Farewell interviews with Jorge Nunez, Jasmine Murray; Kelly Clarkson pregnancy rumors; country theme next week »

My early brave pre-show predictions: Jasmine Murray and Kris Allen. Both are not necessarily the worst singers among the 13. They’re merely the dullest. I only hope Jorge gets another week to get things right. (Well, I was wrong about Kris. See below)

I am here a bit late. Fast forward the DVR to say… goodbye Jasmine. No surprise there. Everyone got that one right I’m sure. Kris Allen survived so that probably means Jorge is a goner. And yes… he is. Anoop was in the bottom three (presumably) but he is safe.

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Then Jorge has to ironically sing “Never Can Say Goodbye.” I liked that dude, especially his spirit. I’m bummed he’s out. But I guess folks couldn’t get past the “cheese” factor — or …

Continue reading 3/11: American Idol recap, top 13 results: Jasmine Murray , Jorge Nunez out (Poll added!) »