Tag: David Cook (Page 2 of 3)

American Idol: Ellen steals show in first Hollywood episode

Last night’s “American Idol” episode marked the start of Hollywood week, and it was our first glimpse at new judge Ellen DeGeneres, who took the place of Paula Abdul recently. The contestants were almost a sideshow to Ellen’s witty, hilarious banter, prompting at least one person (me) to not miss Paula one bit. Yeah, this season’s gonna be fun.

As for the 181 singers who made it to Hollywood and had to sing a cappella or with an instrument for the four judges, they would face “sudden death,” meaning move on to the next round or go home.
Talk about pressure. Here were the best and worst from last night…

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American Idol: America’s shocking decision?

Last night’s “American Idol” finale proved that while we have endured many crappy performances this season from the likes of KC and the Sunshine band, Lady GaGa, Frida Payne and even Idol judge Paula Abdul, they showed that they always save the best for last. I’d say this was one of the best finales, maybe the best yet. And for me, the outcome didn’t suck either. But more on that in a minute.

Ryan Seacrest announced that almost 100 million votes came in, and a record 624 million votes this season. Then they announced each judge and had little clips of them from this past season, focusing on each of their quirks, which was pretty funny. And I’m still seeing red from Randy’s bow tie. Then Adam Lambert and Kris Allen came out wearing all white…what? And after showing Kris’ fans in his hometown in Conway, Arkansas with host Mikhala Gordon, and Adam’s fans in San Diego with Carly Smithson, it was the first group performance–the final 13 all wearing white (oh now I get it) and singing “So What,” after which exactly one dude in the studio audience stood up and clapped. Does anyone remember Jorge? And poor Scott McIntyre was being pushed and pulled all over the place. Jasmine Murray reminded us of why she was booted off early on in the finals when she soloed….ouch!

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American Idol: Judges once again try to crown Lambert

Don’t fall for it though……I have been pimping Kris Allen all along because to me he’s the more genuine artist and has more universal appeal, and he’s a great natural singer. But if you listened to the judges on tonight’s “American Idol” showdown on FOX, they all but handed Adam Lambert the title, again. It was close, mind you, but I still think Kris deserved to win. (and you can still vote by the way (up until around midnight central time), and the best way is by texting the word “VOTE” to 5702 for Kris, 5701 for Adam. Now, on to the recap…

Kris won the coin toss that gave him the right to choose whether he wanted to go first or second, and he smartly chose to let Adam go first, robbing him of yet another pimp spot. Each finalist would sing their own favorite of the past season, a song chosen for them by show creator Simon Fuller, and then the obligatory schmaltz-fest that is the closing Idol song, this year a song co-written by rookie judge Kara DioGuardi.

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American Idol alum Jason Castro signs with Atlantic Records

Texas based Jason Castro, the soft-spoken dude with the powerful vocal ability who wowed America on Season 7 of “American Idol” last year, has just signed a deal with Atlantic Records. Castro’s debut album on the label is planned for release later this year.

Atlantic has spared no expense for this project, enlisting heavyweight producer John Field (Soul Asylum, Lifehouse, Switchfood) and songwriters such as current Idol judge Kara DioGuardi (Kelly Clarkson, Jewel, Santana), Martin Terefe (Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall), Sacha Skarbek (James Blunt, Jason Mraz), Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams), and Jason Reeves (Colbie Caillat).

Castro’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” last season was so powerful that it sold 178,000 digital copies of Jeff Buckley’s version of the song. A few weeks later, Castro’s version of “Over the Rainbow” also hit #1 on iTunes and he finished fourth in the competition, frequently overshadowed by the more popular Davids–eventual champ Cook and runner up Archuleta. Those guys have released their debuts and now Castro takes his turn.

We’ll keep you posted when we know more about the official release date.

American Idol goes a little GaGa

Last night’s “American Idol” results show was a bit different than the past two weeks, because there was no mentor working with the contestants, and instead the theme was popular iTunes downloads. That meant guest appearances from #1 artist Lady GaGa and also from last season’s Idol, David Cook.

But first they recapped the previous night’s performances, along with snippets of the judges’ comments. Here was a gem from Paula that I forgot to write about yesterday, when she was draping praise over Adam Lambert: “True genius does not fulfill expectations, true genius shatters expectations.” Ugh. How much did you hire someone to write that for you, Paula?

Then after showing a typical day in the life of the Idol hopefuls, there was a group performance of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” and it wasn’t awful. Scott even got to play the piano instead of wandering around the stage aimlessly and trying not to trip on national TV. And Adam got to do a real scream, not a forced one.

Then, on to business….Ryan Seacrest broke them up into groups of three–Kris, Matt and Megan; Adam, Lil and Allison; and Scott, Danny and Anoop. He asked which of them we thought was the Bottom 3. I knew better…there would be one from each group to make up the bottom. Then David Cook arrived to sing his new single, “Come Back To Me” and was presented with a platinum album. He started tearing up, and for good reason…he told Seacrest that in 2006 he sold 1000 copies of an album he released on his own, and now he sells 1 million copies of his major label debut in 3 months, thanks to the power of the show. Damn.

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