Headlines: The Voice Reveals Top 4 Finalists Tonight

TONIGHT. FOUR singers are sent packing on The Voice as the Top 4 finalists are revealed. Watch the bloodbath with us beginning at 8 pm ET on NBC.

Spike’s ‘Rock the Troops’ to honor those who sacrifice – Airing Tuesday, Dec. 13, on Spike TV, the two-hour special features performances by Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Katharine McPhee, Kevin Hart, Keegan-Michael Key, Rob Riggle, Terry Crews and Scott Eastwood; music from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Flo Rida, Tenacious D, Nick Jonas and Aaron Lewis; comedy from Jeff Ross and J.B. Smoove; and a taped appearance by George Clooney. – Read more at Gwinnett Daily Post

COM Alum Belting It Out on NBC’s The Voice – As an undergraduate at BU, Brendan Fletcher (CGS’10, COM’12) planned to become a screenwriter. He graduated with a degree in film and television and took a shot, but eventually, Fletcher’s first love—music—won out. The New Jersey native had formed his first band with his brother when he was 12, after learning guitar. By early this year, he was tending bar in New York City to make the rent and playing music with his brother in small clubs around the city. What’s a typical day like for you while the show is in production?
A 12-hour day is a short day. We’re doing everything from commercial shoots to blocking onstage to rehearsing duet songs that we’re going to sing, on top of the song we’re going to perform ourselves on Monday. It’s really, really long days and, at times, it can be extremely stressful. I haven’t been under this amount of stress in a while, probably since finals week at BU. (Laughter.)- Read more at BU.EDU

Jordan Smith Shares Favorite Christmas Memories & Reflects on Life-Changing Year – Why did you want to make a Christmas album so early on in your career? From the outside it’s definitely an interesting choice, but for me it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do. I love Christmas, I love Christmas music, so I’ve always dreamt about making a Christmas album. After working with David Foster on the first project I did back in March, it was honestly just kind of the obvious next choice. I hadn’t really expressed that it was something I’ve wanted to do and someone brought it up to me. I never imagined that I would do it as the second project and within the first year of even starting to make music at all, but when it came up it just seemed so perfect. When we sat down and started working on it, I kind of feel like I was built for Christmas music — there’s a lot of big, beautiful Christmas songs. As a person of faith it’s my time of year anyway, so it just kind of was perfect and made sense. – Read more at Billboard.com

New Music Monday: JAX

Pickler relishes doing ‘things that matter’ – Tribune: Why did you decide to do a reality show? How do you like the program? Pickler: We’ve had so much fun with it. CMT felt like a safe place. We were all in agreement to keep it light, to make it family friendly and fun. My husband and I are so blessed. We have amazing friends. We get to document our fun, crazy little summer and share it with the world. We just finished season two and should find out shortly if we get picked up for season three. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. – Read more at Portland Tribune

‘I must be getting old’: Jennifer Hudson, 35, plays mother of Ephraim Sykes, 31, in TV musical Hairspray Live! – Jennifer Hudson noticed the generation gap narrowing while preparing for her role in the upcoming Hairspray Live! musical. The 35-year-old actress will portray Motormouth Maybelle who also is the mother of Seaweed J. Stubbs, played by 31-year-old Ephraim Sykes. ‘I was just saying, ”I must be getting old. My kids in these movies are getting older and older.” Geez!,’ Hudson told Just Jared. – Read more at Daily Mail.co.uk

Jessica Meuse is paving her own yellow brick road – “Since my time on Idol, I’m looking at working on making a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to make my debut EP!” said Meuse. “It will probably be released before the end of the year, though I’m going to try to be in the studio before then.” Back in April, Meuse said she’d gained a lot of experience and connections from her time on “Idol.” It looks like she’s putting it to good use. The gigs are coming her way. “I have a lot of performances coming up out-of-state, including one in New Jersey for a Shining Star Players fundraiser – ‘Snow Time’ in January,” said Meuse. “I will also be at NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) again in mid-January in Anaheim, California.” – Read more at Montgomery Advertiser

First ‘American Idol’ runner-up Justin Guarini finds home on Broadway – “I feel like if I had won that year, I just wouldn’t have known what to do. I was so naive,” he said. “So I had to learn the hard way. I backed away and I started from the beginning.” Guarini eventually made his way back to Broadway, auditioning for virtually every show and introducing himself to as many casting people as possible, slowly building a career. There may be only a few thousand people watching now, but it’s home. “I was not handed anything and I consider myself so lucky for that because I developed good habits. I learned how to audition properly. I did the work. And I failed miserably at times,” he said. “It taught me all the lessons that I missed not going through the usual setup. And I’m all the better for it.” – Read more at FOX News

Ex-American Idol contestant Corey Clark describes how Paula Abdul ‘groomed her privates’ and they had ‘doggy-style sex’ in sworn deposition over his alleged affair with the former Idol judge – Former American Idol contestant Corey Clark was questioned under oath during a deposition about his alleged affair with Paula Abdul in the latest installment of his lawsuit against E! Television network. Clark’s lawsuit stems from his claim that he was unfairly characterized in an E! True Hollywood Story episode about Abdul. In the deposition, Clark describes how the American Idol judge groomed her private parts (‘shaved, I guess’) and that they had ‘doggy-style’ sex but never anal sex during the alleged affair, which he says took place when he was a competitor on the show in 2003. He also claimed they had oral sex and had unprotected sex. – Read more at DailyMail.co.uk

About mj santilli 34835 Articles
Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted. I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!