May 2007 News Archive (Page 4)

At some point, American Idol producers must have shaken their heads, wondering how they passed over Jordin Sparks, whose soulful singing and girl-next-door likableness have gained fans week after week.

Last summer, the Glendale, Ariz., native tried out for the FOX hit in Los Angeles and didn't even make it past the first round.

"I know she worked really hard to get in shape just to learn how to perform a little bit more," said Kris Siegrest, Sparks' personal trainer and a longtime family friend. "Even when she went the first time, I was shocked she didn't make it."

But since impressing the judges a few months later with "Because You Loved Me," the 17-year-old is now the youngest of three remaining "Idol" hopefuls. She is competing against Blake Lewis, 25, and Melinda Doolittle, 29, to win the big prize.

Siegrest said it is surreal that Sparks has to go out "incognito" when doing something as simple as cheering her younger brother, P.J., at a basketball game.

"She wore baggy clothes and a cap. Even there she got recognized," Siegrest said. "I thought that was really cool in the mix of all the business, she wanted to watch her brother play a junior high game."

The daughter of retired NFL player Phillippi Sparks, Sparks spent most of her childhood in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb. Singing was a passion from the beginning. Churchgoers and family were usually her only audience.

Bobb Cooper, artistic director at Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, remembers a 13-year-old Sparks only being cast in ensemble roles, like a poppy in "The Wiz."

"She really has matured at gaining control of her voice. She gets better every week," Cooper said.

Siegrest said having a father who was a pro athlete should help Sparks deal with her growing fame. At an early age, she experienced what it was like being in the public eye.

"There's some responsibility that comes along with that, and I think she's very aware of it," Siegrest said.

Pandy Raye, Sparks' former guitar teacher, said the teen's family would make sure she stayed role-model material.

"Every decision they make, they really take a lot of time to see 'OK, how is this going to affect her?' She's just so grounded," Raye said.

During the last year, Sparks was home schooled so she could focus on music. In September 2006, she snagged the title Arizona Idol, a competition put on by the local FOX affiliate, and a second chance to audition for the show.

Glendale has been throwing support behind Sparks with elaborate, outdoor American Idol viewing parties at a local shopping complex.

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Kelly Clarkson has predicted who the next bigger winner will be on American Idol. Sort of.

"I think Jordin [Sparks]," she said during an interview on Sirius satellite radio. "I like Blake Lewis; he's interesting. He's new, something different, and I think he did really good with the Bon Jovi song, but I think either Blake or Jordin."

There you have it, people.

Thanks again to TV Guide's American Idol experts for providing the following insight. Let's get right to it...

TVGuide.com: Did you see this weekend's Saturday Night Live? They did a bit with Bill Hader as Ryan, forever toying with the singers' emotions, and Maya Rudolph portraying Melinda as having no visible neck.
Rosanna Tavarez: [Gasps] That's so horrible!
Kimberly Caldwell: Oh, no! I'm sure that hurt her feelings.

TVGuide.com: When I spoke to LaKisha Jones last week, she said she definitely felt the burden being the front-runner, that everyone was expecting her to serve up some "I Am Telling You"-type showstopper every time, regardless of the genre.
Kimberly: I totally agree. She came out so strong, and everybody thought that that was how she would be every week, that she's the girl to beat, but you can't be perfect every single week. She lost a bit of her spark and her charisma, and others passed her up in the competition.
Rosanna: It's hard when people expect excellence from you. But at the same time, it's one thing if you have a bad week. If you continue to have bad weeks, people can't reconcile the difference.

TVGuide.com: I can't understand why the judges are now harping on Blake Lewis for "always" beatboxing, when he in fact went most of the competition without doing it at all.
Kimberly: Exactly. I thought that it was really smart of him to not overdo it in the beginning, and to not overdo it throughout the competition. He's been singing, and technically his voice is not up to par with Melinda, but at the same time Melinda can't beatbox.
Rosanna: Maybe his thinking was, "If I make it far enough, I'll use it as like one of my weapons," but... one song after another of [emulates beatboxing] is a little of an assault to the ears. It's interesting, but only for the occasional song, not consecutively.

TVGuide.com: Why do you think "Bee Gees week" was so tricky for the singers?
Rosanna: Because Bee Gees songs are made for the Bee Gees to sing. Really. They write their songs for their voices, for Barry Gibb's falsetto. So everyone, if they're going to sing it in full voice, which is the better option, they have to lower the key, and now the song doesn't sound the way it used to. It gets lost in translation.

TVGuide.com: How much harder is it during this leg to have to do two or more songs? Is it, like, ridiculously harder?
Rosanna: I think it is ridiculously harder.
Kimberly: Yeah, for sure. For the one song, you've got the CD player on and you've got that song pumping into your brain in between commercial shoots and photo shoots and doing press. But now you have two, so your head is scattered, and you might give a little more love to one song than another.... It's stressful. It's just so much pressure, because the show is so big.

TVGuide.com: Is Jordin Sparks freakishly tall, or is Ryan Seacrest... just not freakishly tall?
Kimberly: I think there's a little bit of both going on there.
Rosanna: I think Jordin is starting to discover the world of six-inch heels. [Laughs] Just kidding!
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Kellie Pickler looks a bit more curvy these days than she did as a Season Five American Idol finalist – but she doesn't have anything she wants to get off her chest.

On the KIIS-FM radio show of Ryan Seacrest Monday morning, the host asked Pickler how she felt about people's comments on her "supersize" figure after she made a guest appearance on this season's Idol.

"Are you talking about my boobs again?" She replied. "Why are you looking at my boobs anyways, you pervert?"

"I'm not looking at them, America is looking at them," Seacrest said.

Pickler responded that she simply appeared to have a fuller physique because "My hair was shorter so everything else looked bigger. [Besides,] I'm 20, my boobs are supposed to be perky."

Still, Seacrest didn't let up. He directly asked about the possibility of phony boobs.

"I don't know," Pickler said. "Ever since the show and your comments, all I hear about is my boobs. But you know me, Ryan, I like to be the center of attention, and right now me and the girls, we are pretty much getting a lot of attention. I like to keep it a mystery. Let the mystery live on because as soon as I say yes or no then no one is going to care anymore."

In the meantime, Pickler has been keeping herself busy with other things.

She's currently on tour opening for Brad Paisley and performing her new single "I Wonder," about her mom, who left when Pickler was a little girl. "I feel like people are really getting to know me on an intimate level," she told Seacrest.

Is it the beat boxing skills? The boyish charm? The voice?

Whatever the reason, Blake Lewis makes the women swoon. It's pretty much a fact.

With that in mind, here are a few photos of the American Idol sensation. They're courtesy of his MySpace account.

It's too bad Antonella Barba go to this fine piece of singing meat first, isn't it, ladies?

The three remaining American Idol contestants took to the streets Friday... of their rapturous hometowns. Local loyalists showed all day just who they thought should win FOX's wildly popular singing contest, which will feature some of the scenes next week.

Back before she was a finalist, Melinda Doolittle was a Belmont University mascot in Tennessee. She wore a hot, sweaty bear costume and jumped around in the name of school spirit.

The tables were turned on Doolittle in a big way when she returned Friday to her alma mater. Hundreds waved signs and shouted encouragement to her: "We love you, Melinda." "You're going to win, Melinda." "Doolittle's Da Bomb." "Melinda for President."

The school even named a street after her, unveiling a black iron post with a blue sign that read: "Melinda Doolittle Way."

Doolittle, who arrived waving from the back of a white convertible Mustang, looked - all too characteristically, as judge Simon Cowell has scolded her - surprised and overwhelmed.

"If I talk too much I'll cry," she said. "You have no idea how much this means to me. ... This is probably one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced."

Doolittle said she was glad to be home, even if just for an afternoon. "I just got some sweet tea, so I'm happy. Now I need some candied yams and greens and I'll be great."

Doolittle, a professional backup singer in Nashville before she became an American Idol contestant, has a rich, powerful voice that she put to work on two songs Friday. But even stars have off moments, and Doolittle's came during her first number when her microphone kept cutting off. The problem was corrected, and she recovered nicely for the second song.

Ironically, her mother, Marguerite Doolittle, said her daughter was tone deaf until about the sixth grade. She couldn't carry a tune to save her life.

"God really dropped a voice into her in the seventh grade," her mother said. "It's been so exciting watching this, because it was not there before. It's like seeing a miracle, really."

The scene was just as raucous in Seattle, where Blake Lewis, 25, played a free concert before more than a thousand fans at Westlake Park. He was joined onstage by Seattle's own Sir Mix-A-Lot, who sang his hit "Baby Got Back" over what many in the crowd came to see: Lewis' beat-boxing.

"Every time you watch American Idol, you see people that can sing, and that's it," Mix-A-Lot said to wild applause. "This cat got real talent. ... He's the new king of Sea-town, baby."

Lewis' homecoming plans included a parade in his suburban hometown of Bothell and a performance of the national anthem at the Mariners-Yankees game Friday night. He looked out on the crowd in the warm midday sunshine and said: "I'm speechless. Thank you guys for all the support."

Many in the crowd, populated largely by truant teenage girls, screamed and waved signs that read "Blaker Girls" or "We (heart) Blake."

Blaire Ginnever, a 14-year-old eighth-grader, said she was skipping her lunch period and Spanish class at Villa Academy in Seattle.

"Blake es muy bueno," she said.

Ginnever's mom, Marilyn, was also in the crowd, and said she didn't mind that her daughter was missing school.

"It's the end of the year, and this is big for Seattle," she said. "We follow the show. It's kind of a family event, and rooting for a hometown boy makes it special."

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Lucky Matt Lauer.

He got the hang out with Kelly Clarkson last week, as the original American Idol performed on the show in order to promote her upcoming album. Here are a series of shows from the appearance:

Let's let Lakisha Jones get right to it with Entertainment Weekly:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Last night after the results were announced and you did ''Stayin' Alive,'' it looked like you were overwhelmed. But your rendition was amazing. Were you having fun up there?
LAKISHA JONES: I was. And you know, they asked us — they asked all of us — if you go home, what song would you like to sing? And I said, ''Honey, 'Stayin' Alive!' 'Cause I'm gonna stay alive after American Idol.'' I would have sung a slow song, but I wanted to go off with a bang! I looked at the lyrics, and you know what, it says, I'm gonna be alright anyway. And that's how I was feeling. I'm gonna make it anyway.

EW: I love ''Stayin' Alive'' — but it's a hard one to sing because it's so fast in parts. Were you afraid to do it?
JL: I was a little nervous just because I know the song is so well known that I didn't want people to make bad comments about me trying to switch it up and slow it down a little bit.

EW: Do you think those comments — about you slowing it down — were fair? Because that was the judges' biggest criticism.
JL: I don't think that's fair — no. Because if I would've just did it like they did it, then he would have said, ''Where's the LaKisha at?''

EW: I know, it's a really hard line to tow — making it your own, but keeping it the same.
LJ: Right, and I felt like that at that moment. You know, a couple weeks ago in the competition, I felt like, you know, I just can't win. And I got tired — and it's so overwhelming and I was just preparing myself to go.

EW: So a couple of weeks ago you felt like it was gonna be over for you soon? But you didn't give up.
LJ: Yeah, I felt like my time was coming. I had to decide what works for me. And if it's for me to be here, then I'll stay, and if not...

EW: I have to tell you, ''This Ain't a Love Song'' — I watched that like 10 times on DVR. Hands down, my favorite performance of yours.
LJ: Oh my God, everybody loved that performance.

EW: Honestly, I thought you were going home that week, coming into that performance.
LJ: I did, too! And then Bon Jovi said to me, ''You know, if you do that song, you got one more week.'' And did he call it or what?! I had changed my song when I first met him. And when I did, he said, ''I'm so glad you changed it. I'm so glad you're doing a ballad.'' And after I sung it to him, he said, ''I hope you packed enough clothes because you're gonna be here another week!''

EW: I remember when he said that! That was just amazing, because I don't know the song that well — and I'm decently familiar with Bon Jovi stuff. But I think that's another key to picking songs: You wanna pick something that's kind of well known, but not enough so that it's ingrained in people's memories such that they can't think of it any other way. And my favorite part? The end when you ripped into whomever it was you were singing to.
LJ: Maybe Bon Jovi will let me cover it!

EW: When you were singing ''And I'm Telling You, I'm Not Going,'' you have this amazing energy that just seems to build. And the crowd really responds. I almost feel like I can see you perking up as they cheer. That true?
LJ: I do! My confidence level just shoots up and I get a rush! It means so much to me to have the crowd let me know they're right there with me. I think the objective is to bring America to you. Not for you to go to America. But in a song and a lyric, you embrace it and bring them into you. And I think that's where my problem was this week because I had such a hard time choosing songs and I really was not at all...I don't think I was prepared. Because I just felt like this really wasn't my style.

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The following article is courtesy of The Chicago Sun-Times...

Where are the viewer votes for American Idol front-runner Jordin Sparks coming from? Possibly the Christian right.

A photo that seems to show her holding a "Stop Abortion Now" sign (courtesy of her MySpace page) is making the rounds of Idol fan postings online.

Most viewers are unaware, though. In Idol fashion, no one on air ever asks Jordin about politics because the show builds up these future musical properties with cotton candy profiles. Meanwhile, anti-abortion-rights people are definitely trying to politicize Idol.

A few weeks ago, the reality competition raised $70 million for poverty charities in America and Africa.

At least one overzealous outfit attacked the show in a press release, screaming in a headline, "AMERICAN IDOL NOW FUNDING PRO-ABORTION GROUPS."

You see, two charities that benefitted were UNICEF and Save the Children, organizations that feed the most starving-to-death families around the world.

But UNICEF and Save the Children also do family planning. If potential mothers die of hunger, their someday-unborn babies won't even become pre-unborn. True believers don't want to hear that.

So now, the trio of finalists is Jordin, Blake Lewis and Melinda Doolittle. Horrible Blake will probably get ejected next week. Paula Abdul loves Blake. My friend Ashley says that's because Paula is sexist and stands up to dance during male performances.

This week, Paula called Blake a "contemporary rebel" for the way he beatboxed to Bee Gees songs in falsetto. That would have made him a rebel in 1983, maybe. Also a dork. But based on the old ages of songs contestants must sing, the aggregate year Idol actually takes place in is 1982, so of course Paula thinks Blake is ahead of the back-to-the-future curve.

The judges truly need to catch up. A few months ago, Blake sang "All Mixed Up," a huge 1995 MTV hit that helped sell 3 million albums for the band 311. Paula, Randy and Simon beamed at how modern it sounded, since they'd never heard it.

In other words, Paula, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell are so out of touch with modern rock from 2007 and Top 10 rock from 1995 that they think Blake's subpar beatboxing is hip to be square.

Fortunately, voters probably won't stick with Blake. Melinda and Jordin look destined for a faceoff. Melinda should win, as the only contestant who interprets fresh arrangements of old songs and sings them strong in perfect pitch.

Christian rightists ought to be pleased with Melinda. In her official Idol bio, she says if she wins the first thing she'll do is thank "Jesus and my mommy."

A thank you to USA Today for the following track-by-track review of the latest album from Paris Bennett, Princess P...

1. All Hail the Princess: The ego has landed in this Prince-like conceit. It's probably best taken tongue-in-cheek, as something of a goof, and it's short enough that you can do so.

2. Ordinary Love: Probably my favorite track, an R&B/rock-riffing fusion also singled out in Elysa Gardner's review. Cool stuff.

3. Dreamin': Doesn't really go anywhere or capture your attention, except for the neat backwards guitar figure at the end.

4. Daddy: Sad tune about fatherly neglect, kind of singsongy and dullish, but it wound up building nicely. Not bad.

5. Let Me Rap: This is the one with Kevin Covais, proudly adopting his Chicken Little identity, and it's a total distraction. It's obviously intended to be a goof, and a self-deprecating one ("I'm just tryin' to do better than Kevin Federline," proclaims our Kevin, quickly following with an apology to Federline). But believe me, heard once, you'll never want to hear it again.

6. My Boyfriend's Back: So we've shifted from funk princess mode to teen pop novelty girl. Paris plays it for giggles, and it's kind of likable, even with the added rapping, scratching and occasional updated lyrics ("he's kind of gangsta and he's awful strong"). But we're wandering all over the place musically by now.

7. Can't Control Myself: And matters are further confused by this pretty contemporary R&B ballad with acoustic guitar, one of the best tracks but completely at odds with the preceding two.

8. Duet: Imaginative title for what is in fact a duet, with J. Isaac, and a deathly dull ballad, the nadir of which is the unwelcome appearance of some of those dreaded smurf/Chipmunks sped-up vocals.

9. I'm So Hot (interlude): Now we're back to the original Princess P persona, first with this brief intro, then continuing with ...

10. I'm So Hot: ... the song itself, loaded with wobbly, oscilatting funk riffs, sort of a "queasy listening" sound.

11. Get Bizzy: Another funk tune, but a big improvement, intricate, absorbing sound, another of my favorites.

12. Caught Up: Continues the positive trend with a rather pretty tune.

13. B-Bye: A dullish upbeat number featuring chants of the title phrase, failing to hold much interest.

14. Burnt Up: A pretty good ballad gimmicked up with tons of male vocal interjections, many distorted or slowed down, another Princess of Funk effort.

15. I Will: But enough of that, it's time to close out on a gospel note, with a big chorus plastered over a fairly tedious ballad (although not without its affecting moments).

16. Best Friends: With mom and famous grandmother (Ann Nesby) on board, this turns into a big gospelized diva-fest in which Paris gets lost in the crush of sheer vocal power.