Idol Headlines for 10/05/08

Catching up with Diana DeGarmo (with video!)

I stopped by Underground Atlanta for the Go Arts Month celebration today to catch up with Diana DeGarmo, who did a panel on how to become a singing star, signed autographs and sang a couple of songs. Here her new song …Turn To Me, which she said she has only performed live once before. (My first attempt at video! Tell me if it works or not ¦)

Access Atlanta

A Few Words From Clay Aiken

“Killing the elephants in the room.
10/03/08
What a week or so this has been. In fact, it’s just been two weeks since I started back to the Spam. Jerome and I were just talking the other day, though, about how the past two weeks have felt like a month. So much routine to get back into and yet so much routine and consistency to break. No doubt, many of you have been going through quite a bit over the past week or so yourselves. What a bunch of headline news we have had in the past 10 days! Wall Street falling to it’s knees. Congress propping it back up. Two debates. Hijackers in Somalia. New leaders in South Africa and Japan. You’d think with all of the important events going on in the world, there would be plenty to fill up the pages of America’s newspapers, websites and blogs without the need for information on the private lives of the country’s singers and entertainers.

Perez Hilton

More Headlines after the JUMP…

Career at stake, Blake Lewis jumps into driver seat

…American Idol season six runner-up Blake Lewis is seeming more like an …Idol winner every day. Or at least he got a lot in common with winners-turned-losers Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard.

After his debut album, …Audio Day Dream, started at No. 10 only to fall fast from the charts, Lewis became the latest …Idol alum cut loose from Arista. And now …Idol-associated 19 Management is also putting Lewis out to pasture – but not before a quick tour that brings him to Great Scott tomorrow.

Boston Herald

Jennifer Hudson’s brilliant voice victim of dull songs, production on debut album

On “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going, ” her starmaking, Oscar-winning moment in the 2006 movie “Dreamgirls, ” Jennifer Hudson transcended the song’s polite supper-club setting with a furious, gut-wrenching performance.

It’s the kind of performance that should have been followed by a classic debut album. Unfortunately, “Jennifer Hudson” (Arista) doesn’t qualify.

“And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is tagged on near the end of the disc, and it blows away everything that precedes it. There’s no denying the Chicago native is a prodigiously gifted vocalist. But a singer is only as strong as her material, and there’s not enough on “Jennifer Hudson” that measures up to her gutsy, gospel-drenched alto.

Chicago Tribune

Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson has been a loser on TV’s American Idol and a winner in the film Dreamgirls. Although she was awarded an Oscar, in part because she tore the house down as the discarded Effie, pouting and howling her hurt way through “And I Am Telling You, ” there’s been no proof of this singer’s real pop prowess. Until now.

Nearly two years in the making, Jennifer Hudson is what commercially calculated R&B has become: equal parts big, brassy sass and slow, simmering soul aided by producers and songwriters who do the same for other diva clients.

Philly.com

Singer Bennett celebrates ‘A Royal Christmas’

Singer Paris Bennett is about to celebrate two big events – her first baby and her first Christmas CD.

The former “American Idol” contestant releases “A Royal Christmas” in October on CC Entertainment. The 20-year-old who now lives in Minneapolis says she’s also about to give birth to a daughter any day.

Bennett says she’s tried to put her own twist on traditional songs, such as “a lot of drums” on “The Little Drummer Boy” and big-band touches to “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

wxow.com

Surprise happens in ‘Dancing With the Stars’ cuts

And that lovable-yet-slightly-loony Cloris Leachman will be back as America’s favorite batty ol’ granny. The best part is, we don’t have to endure any more of bland bombshellKim Kardashian, who was eliminated last week from the competition on ABC’s smash dance-off series.

This season, the show’s seventh, is just getting good, folks. And that’s the reason Monday night’s dance segment is No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings, bringing in 20 million-plus viewers, and 18 million more on Tuesdays for the results show.

Mlive

Cloris Leachman of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ makes fans, senior citizens angry!

What is up with “Dancing with the Stars” this season? In the seven seasons of “DWTS” I have never received so many e-mails from readers about the antics of any one performer. In this case, potty-mouth Cloris Leachman is making many of you downright irate.

Personally, I think her risque comments and senior moment schtick is starting to wear out its welcome, but I can honestly say, that I laughed so hard on the opening night of this season’s “DWTS” that my kids thought there was something wrong with me.

What will happen this week? Does she have a chance to advance?

Mlive

America’s Got Talent aftermath: fan reactions against the winner

If you’ve been reading my America’s Got Talent reviews over the summer, you know I was not happy with last week’s results. But since I’m a passive viewer (aka I do not vote), I had to accept America’s choice as best new act in America. Since the finale aired, I’ve been reading comments TV Squad readers left on our site and what the Entertainment Weekly AGT reviewer and readers had to say about the winner. Reading those comments left me with one question: who voted for the winner anyway?

Based on the comments left on both sites, Eli Mattson or Nuttin But Stringz would have won, not crying opera singer Neal E. Boyd. A lot of commenters even say they will more than likely not watch season four because the season three results “suck.” So who voted for Neal to win? Clearly, not the EW and TVS readers.

TV Squad

About mj santilli 34833 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!