August 2007 News Archive (Page 5)

USA Today spoke with Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis soon after the sixth season of American Idol ended.

Here's what each had to say about Kelly Clarkson and more...

What do you think has made Kelly so successful?
Jordin: She really set the standard. She was a total raw talent, and I love her edge. She's my favorite.
Blake: I think she has one of the best voices in the record industry. And she reminds me of my mom, with her nice bluesy quality.

Did she give you any advice?
Jordin: I met her at the finale. She basically just told me that it's sucha cool experience and to have fun with it.
Blake: She's actually right across the way right now, so I'm gonna try to go over there and say hi.

So, how did you brace yourself for the judges'comments every week?
Jordin: It's always such a blur -- I kind of didn't hear what they said sometimes.
Blake: I never listened to them, honestly. And a lot of their stuff is a bunch of malarkey.

Was it frustrating to not get free rein on song choice?
Jordin: Sometimes -- when there were too many songs I wanted to sing. You can only pick one, so that was hard.
Blake: Yeah, [the] restrictions suck. I don't really like singing other people's stuff.

Jordin Sparks was the definitive winner of this year's American Idol competition, but her group of competitors might be losers overall.

The American Idols Live tour that lands at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota on Saturday appears to be limping into town, despite the high-as-ever ratings for the TV show last spring. Ticketmaster's website shows good seats still available in the lower level of the St. Paul arena, including floor seats in the first 20 rows.

On eBay and other online outlets, tickets have been selling for rock-bottom prices for weeks (well before Thursday's bridge collapse in Minneapolis). A pair of seventh-row floor seats sold for $5.25 on eBay (face value: $70 per ticket), and many other pairs are selling for under $10.

Blake Lewis and Jordin Sparks please the crowd with a duet.

The American Idol tour makes it a bittersweet week for ticket brokers, who were in the clear to profit on the show after ticket scalping became legal Wednesday in Minnesota.

"This has been the weakest seller so far" of all the Idol tours, said Ticket King co-owner Brian Oberst. "It comes down to who the Idols are, and this year nobody seems to care about them."

Saturday's ticket sales have a long way to go to match the sellout crowd of 16,685 at last year's American Idol show at the X, featuring Taylor Hicks and Chris Daughtry. The 2004 year with Fantasia was a poor seller, but all other years have drawn over 12,000. Arena reps remained hopeful this one would do the same.

"We fully anticipate this show being as successful as the previous ones," said arena spokesman Peter Johns.

It's official:

Some Hearts from Carrie Underwood has finally passed Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway to become the best-selling Idol album of all-time. The margin was razor-thin, according to Nielsen SoundScan: 5,813,400 for Carrie, 5,813,200 for Kelly.

Clarkson's current album, My December, is still the top-selling Idol album of the week, dropping from No. 11 to No. 15 on the Billboard chart. It sold 31,000, down from 42,000 the previous week, a 27% drop. It's sold 536,000 total.

Daughtry drops 22-25 on the chart, selling 23,000, an 8% drop; his total is 2.96 million. Carrie moves from number-30 to number-28 on the chart, selling 21,000, off 1% from the previous week.

Meanwhile, Elliott Yamin moves 81-84 with flat sales of about 9,000 and a total of 333,000; Bucky Covington slides 83-91, selling a bit more than 8,000, down 5%, with a total of 231,000.

Kellie Pickler has a nice week, climbing 141-99 on a 42% sales increase to more than 7,000. Her total's 593,000. And Fantasia drops 125-179, selling 4,000, a 31% drop. Total: 447,000.

Did Simon Cowell learn nothing with From Justin to Kelly?

The American Idol judge was not involved in that fiasco, which may explain why he still think a movie inspired by his hit reality show could be a success.

Enter Star Struck.

The film's plot is a hybrid of a fictionalized American Idol-like show and Alan Parker’s 1980s’ film Fame. Star Struck follows the lives of ten celebrity-hungry contestants as they pursue their fifteen minutes.

“The story is told through the eyes of those ten contestants,” Cowell said. “We want it to be the musical version of Rocky — an underdog story, a feel-good film. Fame was all about young people wanting to be famous, and in order to do that, they enrolled in a drama school; everyone who wants to be famous today signs up for American Idol.”

To further the life-imitating-art-imitating-reality narrative, Star Struck will be cast via nationally held auditions and the film will open with Cowell presiding over potential candidates, just like those first weeks of Idol. Cowell is aiming for a summer 2008 release date.

Would you watch this?

The hits keep coming for Corey Clark.

Unfortunately, they aren't ever music related.

The infamous American Idol reject, who made headlines in 2005 after alleging he carried on an affair with judge Paula Abdul, was arrested in Arkansas early Monday on charges of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia and for having an outstanding warrant issued in his name.

Officers were called to a residential section of North Little Rock at 2:45 a.m. after receiving a report of a suspicious vehicle spotted idling in the area. When cops approached the vehicle, Clark emerged from the passenger side of the car. It's unclear whether the drugs and paraphernalia were found on Clark's person or in the vehicle.

Sgt. Terry Kuykendall of the North Little Rock Police Department said that officers ran Clark's name through the Arkansas Crime Information Center database. The search revealed an outstanding warrant from Arizona, stemming from an arrest last year for misdemeanor charges of violating a restraining order and trespassing, as well as felony charges for aggravated harassment and failure to comply with court orders.

A bond of $25,000 was set for Clark's most recent indiscretion.

Thousands of people hoping to be the next Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson or even Sanjaya lined up outside Qualcomm Stadium on Monday as auditions for the seventh season of American Idol began.

Some brought makeup kits, Starbucks cups filled with throat-clearing salt water and even karaoke machines. Others came before dawn, armed with sleeping bags and pillows.

"Why wouldn't I get here early? My No. 1 goal is to be on the program," said Lonnie Beatty, 20, who spent the night on a trolley platform just outside the stadium grounds in order to be one of the first in line.

A publicist for the show said 12,000 people showed up for their chance at stardom.

John Edward Carey, 27, was one of the lucky few rewarded with a ticket to the second round of tryouts.

The custom guitar builder and post-punk rocker from Van Nuys, near Los Angeles, made it to the final 25 last year on his first outing and said he decided to give it another shot after dropping 35 pounds and getting an encouraging e-mail from a producer.

"Last year I thought, 'I want to make it to the top 50,' and I did," Carey said after his tryout. "This year I want to make it to the top 10. This year I want to win it!"

His wife, Annie, said she pushed her husband to audition after listening to him criticize contestants on the show.

"He kept saying, 'I can sing better than that,'" she said. "So finally I just said, 'Fine, you go audition and stop interrupting my show!'"

Would-be contestants began lining up at 3 a.m. They had already spent hours in line over the weekend waiting to register for wristbands to get into the tryouts: neon yellow for singers, slate gray for supporters.

"I haven't slept in two days," said 16-year-old Jessica Schaffer of Temecula, explaining she drove around all night until she was allowed into the stadium grounds.

With the Comic-Con entertainment expo drawing a record crowd of more than 120,000 to San Diego over the weekend and thousands more in town for a sandcastle competition and an international youth soccer tournament, American Idol hopefuls who wanted some shut-eye resorted to the classified Web site Craigslist.org or even military bases for beds.

Click here to read the rest of this ABC News story.

Sabrina Sloan has signed a recording contract with Universal Motown - and here's cool news about her first project:

It will be a CD of duets with fellow season 6 semifinalist Sundance Head, the singer confirmed in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly.

''The feel will be soulful songs with a contemporary twist — kind of Al Green meets OutKast,'' said Sloan, noting that she and Head will hit the studio in August, with the hopes of making a late November release date.

Jolene Cherry, senior VP of A&R at Universal Motown, said the album will be produced by Peter Collins and include a mix of new and classic material. ''I usually am not so much in sync with things that are on American Idol,'' Cherry noted, ''but both [Sloan and Head] really caught my attention. I was really impressed by the quality of their vocals.''

Sloan, the last female semifinalist voted off American Idol before the season 6 finals began, said that an executive from Universal Motown tracked her down via a member of her mother's Arizona church congregation in the days after her ouster.

And despite some initial reservations about the duets concept, Sloan said she hopes the combined power of hers and Head's fan bases will help them get noticed in a music scene increasingly crowded with Idol alumni. '

'We had a fear of having a whole From Justin to Kelly thing. We didn't want to make anything cheeseball,'' Sloan explained. ''But Jolene and the [people at the] label said, 'It cannot be that.' We're putting it out at the same time as Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis. It's got to be killer.''

Still, Sloan added, in the long-term, both she and Head consider themselves solo artists. ''It's not going to be a long-term [partnership], like Peaches & Herb,'' she said with a laugh.

Aside from Mario Vazquez, who chose to drop out of Idol just prior to the season 4 finals, and novelty act William Hung, Sloan and Head appear to be the first Idol contestants to score major label deals without reaching the top 12.