Feeds
Every year sees “American Idol” hopefuls mimic what worked the previous year, and what led David Cook to victory in season seven was tweaking the arrangements to fit his own style rather than doing a glorified karaoke routine each week. That carried over to season eight, and both finalists succeeded putting their own spin on songs. Having Kris Allen ignore the disco theme and sing “She Works Hard for the Money” as an acoustic guitar solo was a lot better than if he had shown up in John Travolta's white suit and tried to strut.
In her first two appearances on the country's top-rated television show, the show's new fourth judge, Kara DioGuardi, has already improved "American Idol."
To look at Mickey Rourke’s face is to see a road map of bad decisions. Who knew that the destruction of his beautiful mug — via boxing, plastic surgery and plain old hard living — would bring him to one of his greatest performances?
Once again, a fake hidden immunity idol was played, and once again, the gullible person who played it went home. Randy was given Bob's hand-crafted idol at Sugar's prompting, because Sugar told us that "Randy is an ass and I loathe him with every inch of my being." Before that, Randy thought he was being strategic and crafted a plan: He'd act worse than usual around camp, hoping to draw votes, and then convince Exile-visiting Bob to give him the immunity idol, which would allow Randy, Corinne, and Bob's votes for Susie to prevail at Tribal Council. But since the idol was fake, Randy was instead voted out, and Sugar laughed out loud, having gotten her revenge.
"Just when you think you're in control of this game — blindsided." That's what Jeff Probst said to the new Kota tribe after it voted out Marcus, the old Kota tribe's leader. After the tribes were mixed up yet again, each had a majority of second-Kota members, but Susie flipped and voted with Fang to dump her tribe's leader.
A.J. Green can finish the sentence without any help. Julio Jones is the next coming of Terrell Owens, and your style has been compared to ... "Randy Moss," Green chimed in, not even waiting for the reporter to complete the analogy.
This was Mariah Carey week for the "Idol" contestants, as the record-setting pop star served as the guest mentor. In a related news story, Carey has a new album out, and as the show has mentioned perhaps a million times in its seven-year history, she and Randy Jackson have worked together quite a bit over their careers.
In honor of “Idol Gives Back,” the remaining eight finalists got to pick a song they considered inspirational this week. The two singers who had the most at stake did the best job at picking songs that inspired the judges to sing their praises, while others with a better history on the show got tepid reviews.
After two weeks of John Lennon and Paul McCartney tunes, “American Idol” finally and mercifully retired the Beatles theme. That made the contestants, the audience and Heather Mills all very happy. Instead, the theme for the week was birthdays, with everyone singing songs released in the year they were born.
As the “Idol” final sprint to the finish officially began on Tuesday, the show offered a new stage and a new songbook to choose from.
For the second night in a row, the “American Idol” judges were faced with a controversial candidate who’s been in the news for something other than musical talent. Again, the judges sent the clear message to the viewers that if the singer’s transgressions were that offensive, it was up to them to vote the miscreant off.
The theme was ’80s music, and the question of the week for the eight male semifinalists was to name their most embarrassing moment. Considering one headline-making story, the setup seemed too good to be true.
The theme of Wednesday’s “America Idol” was ’70s music, but the storyline was all about song choice. In the vast majority of cases, the judges were unimpressed with the contestants’ selections, and several left themselves in danger of being voted off by picking songs that didn’t give them enough of a chance to shine onstage.
The "American Idol" guys sang songs from the ‘70s on Tuesday's show, and it was one of those nights where the judges seemed to grade on a curve.
Deciding that the nine hours devoted to the seven audition cities just wasn’t enough, Fox presented a special best-of edition of “American Idol” on Wednesday night. “Idol” is guaranteed to put up huge numbers every time it airs, while the other networks have nothing but whatever they can come up with that doesn’t require the striking Writers Guild. It was an easy call for Fox to make.
You may have noticed an emphasis on heart-wrenching stories during this year’s “American Idol” auditions. And in that regard, Atlanta did not disappoint.
What are you looking for in your American Idol? Is it a technical and/or expressive marvel of a voice? How about a confident, entertaining performance? Or maybe you'd prefer a triumph over life obstacles that have nothing to do with actually singing?
This has generally been a feel-good season for “American Idol,” with Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell offering helpful advice as often as biting criticism from their perches behind the judges’ table.
The most successful “American Idol” champion of recent vintage is Carrie Underwood, a girl from small-town Oklahoma who grew to become a country music superstar. Looking to recapture that dynamic after two lackluster champions in a row, the “Idol” producers went to Omaha, Nebraska, hoping for another dose of Midwest magic.
Charleston, South Carolina, is billed as the friendliest city in the country, according to “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest. Not surprisingly, none of the show’s three judges live there.
In the search for a viable “American Idol,” the show turned its eyes to Dallas. The city produced Kelly Clarkson in its first season, which must seem like a long time ago — especially to the people who’ve had to market Taylor Hicks as a bona fide superstar.
Why is there suffering if God is Good?New book tried to give new perspective on why bad things happen to good people. The author also tries to explain why doesn't God do more to restrain evil? And why doesn't God explain His reasons?
Seven Reasons Kris Won American IdolJust like it's now bad karma to be the front runner in the Oscar race (as Frost/Nixon can tell you) or the presidential election (as Hillary Clinton can tell you), it also doesn't help if you're the foregone winner of Idol long before the season is over.
Indian Valley superintendent suspended - New Philadelphia, OH - The Times-ReporterRandy Cadle, Indian Valley Local Schools superintendent at Gnadenhutten, was suspended Thursday night by the Board of Education in a unanimous vote.
Shoplifted soap? One man blamed for more than $40,000 in theftsExcerpt: All good entrepreneurs have their niche. If what police say is true, Randy Sterling — the alleged "Body Wash Guy" shoplifter — has found his special place in the world of crime.
Weclome to Luavul. They did it at Churchill Downs, Trying to invoke the image of a horse race. If Idol is a horse race, they saddled a bunch of donkeys in San Francisco. Will tonight be better? (Is it possible to BE worse???) What was the idea of arriving in 4 separate limos?
Back to the home of William Hung. Not a great thing to recommend the venue!
Casey Anthony case: State attorney's office slams WFTV's Baez reportExcerpt: I thought WFTV-Channel 9's story Monday night about Jose Baez was gossipy and lacking substance.
The first contestant thought she really could sing. Simon was really snarky. He just could not maintain it I guess! "It sounded like a cat falling off the Empire State Building." Randy joined in. The females came to her defense.
He is such a thing of beauty I thought his photo should be preserved on Newsvine. Thanks to Ombra for the suggested headline.
Dr. Drew Diagnoses the Harsh Reality of Reality TVIn August 2005, a dream came true for Paula Goodspeed. Having made it to the third round of American Idol's Season 5 auditions, she stood across a table from Paula Abdul, of whom she was a longtime fan.
''Brick walls are not there to keep us out... [they] are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are Randy_pausch_photo there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.''
The Last Lecture Inspirational Figure Randy Pausch loses his battle with cancer... PITTSBURGH - Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.
Everyday, someone else hears those fateful words "you have cancer" as I get older, it seems to be far more common and all to often, it's not something that is expected in people so young.
Idol Elimination 4/17: Too many Cooks in the KitchenCurse you, Seacrest! I've been waiting to use that tag line for weeks and you just had to use it before me. Idol lost the last of its dead weight tonight with the elimination of Kristy Lee Cook, the unofficial ambassador of the country vote.
Of course it had to start out with a lame "April Fool's" joke. Ryan talked about "squeezing" 9 performances in an hour. All they have to do is stop all the extraneous crap. Give each of the nine contestants 4 minutes. It would still leave 6 minutes for Ryan's useless prattling.
We get another "Beatles" night. Things do not look good. They only got rights to 25 songs in the Lennon-McCartney collection. Of course, when Ryan is hyping the show he does not tell us that. They say they 'expanded' to the Beatles. How expanded remains to be seen.
One question, if they are the worst by national vote, why do we have to hear them sing badly again?
We get a new set. "Bigger and better than ever," says Ryan. Does the set make the singing better? One would hope but it is highly doubtful. Tonight Randy was in black and Simon wore a white collared dress shirt, slightly unbuttoned. Paula was there too.
For some reason we had to endure Blake Lewis. He was one who came "close". He demonstrated why he lost. The song was uninspiring. He did a lot of prancing around that must have been meant to substitute for real choreography. He did a bit of his "robot" near the end.
Ryan starts out by telling Randy that he seems too nice this year. He has not been very critical at all and not constructive. He is only slightly less a cheerleader than Paula.
We get the 'embarrassing' moments tonight. I wonder if we get to hear about the male on male stripper? Do the embarrassing moments for the producers count? Speaking of embarrassing, for some reason the last article did not publish even after it said it did.
Ryan started with a lot less hype tonight. The remaining ten and the judges were introduced. It was claimed that Paula had a hit song. Not if he was referring to that atrocious video from last week.
Coming into the program I was a bit surprised by the results of the MSNBC poll about which men should go home. Chikezie Eze and Danny Noriega were neck and neck at 25% and 23% to be the ones to go. My picks Garrett Haley (17%) and Luke Menard (15%) were a distant third and fourth.
We start with the usual hype written for Ryan about the "best talent ever. " Randy says that the boys really did well. I wonder if he was watching a different show. Simon admitted he likes people that stand up to him.
We finally get to the singing. Well, not really. We get a load of useless crap or recrap. Ryan once again claims that this is the season with the "most talent ever." It took 10 minutes to get to the actually singing. Songs of the Sixites is the theme tonight.
Log In | Register
