3:38 PM PST 2/17/2012 by Michele Amabile Angermiller
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Many of you Idol Worshipers may not know this, but when I’m not blogging about American Idol for The Hollywood Reporter, I'm logging in hours as a DJ at New Jersey Top 40 radio station, 94.3 The Point.
With Simon Cowell, out of sight certainly does not mean out of mind.
Take, for example, the current brouhaha over who might be the next X Factor judge -- Mariah Carey? Janet Jackson? Katy Perry? Pink? It seems to be all people want to talk about, while the American Idol gang looks, well, idle.
What happens in Vegas, doesn't always stay in Vegas: sometimes, it's caught on camera for all cringe-inducing eternity, thanks to the magic of reality television.
On Thursday's American Idol showdown, contestants were whittled down from 70 to 42 at the Elvis Theater in Las Vegas. The task: wow the judges with a show-stopping group performance of a song from the '50s or '60s. The result: some promising future semifinalists, a surprising elimination and one major diva fit.
Behold, our picks for Best Moments in Sin City, Circa Season 11:
11:27 PM PST 2/15/2012 by Michele Amabile Angermiller
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Have the producers of American Idol been reading my mind? The promo before tonight’s grueling two-hour Hollywood rounds episode touted that Idol is the only show that “produces real superstars.” Need proof? It was there in the commercial as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Scotty McCreery, David Cook and Adam Lambert were all name-checked, along with some vital stats. Namely, that the show has amassed 314 No.
8:59 PM PST 2/9/2012 by Michele Amabile Angermiller
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Hollywood Week on American Idol is always a brutally bloody exercise where only the strong survive and the weaker contestants are cut with surgeon-like precision. That said, Thursday’s group round episode -- with 185 singers facing grave injury or illness, apparently -- played out like an episode of General Hospital with plenty of drama and no singing, unless you count snippets of group rehearsals.
Katharine McPhee may have been introduced to America via her 2006 stint on Fox's American Idol.
But, if you're just hearing about McPhee for the first time, you'd never know it. The singer-turned-actress' Idol past isn't mentioned anywhere on her bio for NBC's Smash.
That was the number of contestants who arrived for the Fox contest's Hollywood rounds, nervous yet hopeful to make it through to the semi-finals. (Only 24 of them do.) In this stage of the competition, anxiety is high and the pressure is on.
Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer on American Idol, blames the show's ratings downturn in part to competition from NBC's The Voice and fellow Fox series The X Factor.
"With The X Factor sitting there, it feels like two Idol seasons on Fox," Lythgoe said Tuesday in a telephone press conference.
Katharine McPhee joined the likes of Howard Stern, David Beckham and Ferris Bueller on Sunday as NBC unspooled a new promo for its Broadway drama Smash.
American Idol season 6 winner Jordin Sparks has some football pedigree. Idol viewers may recall that her father, Phillippi "PJ" Sparks, was a Defensive Back for the New York Giants. But on this Super Bowl, where the Giants take on the New England Patriots, the 22-year-old isn't partying with the thousands of revelers in Indianapolic, nor is she performing, as she's done in previous pre-shows.
Singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl is a pressure-filled task (see: Christina Aguilera flubbing the lyrics last year) but Kelly Clarkson pulled it off without a hitch.
Backed by a children's choir, the pop star and original American Idol champ belted a capable and lyrically-correct version of the song, sporting a Mariah Carey-esque ensemble of a tight black dress, bangs and long, flat-ironed hair.
Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood are celebrating the Super Bowl together -- at least, on live television.
Tyler moonlights as a judge on American Idol, the show that launched Underwood to country superstardom. So it's perhaps fitting that the CMT series Crossroads, which pairs country singers with artists of other genres for a singalong and story-sharing session, has picked the duo to team up for an episode schedule to air live (11 p.m. EST) from Indianapolis on Feb. 4, the day before Super Bowl XLVI.
From Anderson Cooper's giggle-fest to a Fox anchor accidentally reporting President Obama's death, THR looks at some of the year's big television news gaffes that made headline news.
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