New URL for the American Idol buzz blog!
Please go to the new American Idol Buzz blog at http://blogs.ajc.com/american-idol-blog/
Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > March > 23
Sunday, March 23, 2008
3/24: Whatever happened to.. season three? Sales figures & Clay’s new CD, too
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s info culled from the “where are they now” segment in the USA Today special section, season three. Arguably, this is the weakest crew of “Idols” of the seven seasons in terms of depth, especially the guys.
Here they are, in no particular order:
Jasmine Trias (third) Folks on the mainland may have forgotten about her but in the Phillipines, she’s huge. She got endorsements, a movie role in a Filipino film, and is touring there this year. She’s even on a major label in Singapore.
John Stevens (sixth) He is still attending the Berklee College of Music and is in his third year.
Amy Adams (tenth) Not much goin’ on lately. They recap that she had a baby and toured with “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” a couple years back.
Diana DeGarmo (second) She’s in Nashville workin’ her country angle with John Rich although she inexplicably lost to Julio Iglesias Jr. in “Gone Country” on CMT recently.
LaToya London (fifth) She’s co-starring in the first national tour of “The Color Purple.”
George Huff (fourth) He has carved out a modest Christian music career so far and still the nicest dude I’ve ever met in terms of “Idol” alums.
Matt Rogers (eleventh) He worked as an offensive line coach at Mission Viejo High School and has hosted a couple of TV shows. He recently lost his gig as “Idol Extra” to Constantine.
Leah LaBelle (twelfth) She left Berklee School in 2006 and it doesn’t appear as if she’s done notable much since.
Camile Velasco (ninth) She worked briefly with Motown but nothing ever happened and USA Today doesn’t seem to have any clue of anything otherwise.
Fantasia (winner) She’s done quite well for herself, selling 2.3 million copies of her first two albums, including 508K of her latest. Her Lifetime biopic was huge, she published a best-selling book despite telling the world she was functionally illiterate and she brought huge critical acclaim for her role in Broadway as Celie in “The Color Purple.” There’s talk of her doing a musical version of “Purple” in the movies.
Jennifer Hudson (seventh) The most successful seventh place finisher in “Idol” history thanks to, oh, that Oscar for “Dreamgirls.” We are still awaiting that solo album with Clive Davis.
Jon Peter Lewis (eighth) The man with the goofiest dance moves in “Idol” history released an album in 2006 to minimal notice and has second on his way June 3. He worked with “American Idol’ camp last summer and will be back this year.
And he sat in the “Idol” audience last week with Kevin Covais. Here’s his blog on ew.com about it..
Funniest bit?
Kevin mentioned that he’s working on a movie at MGM studios. I think that’s cool and he seemed really excited about it. I mean, he said MGM, like, 12 times in one minute. I think he’s got a really good look for film. He could totally play the beta male roles. The story only got better and more disturbing from there, though. He started talking about how he recently moved in with Ace Young and then mentioned something about picking up Ace’s womanizing leftovers? Yikes! Now that’s a movie script waiting to be written.
Kevin rooming with Ace and picking up Ace’s leftovers? That image is scarring me as I write this!!!
He also spoke with Simon and since there isn’t much to say about Jon Peter’s career, Simon said he looked “healthy.”
In other “Idol” news:
Some grouchy Canadian disses Carrie Underwood for being “over the top” in concert. Huh?’
In sales, Daughtry is the top seller as usual on the album charts with another 21K and 3.88 million total. His single “Feels Like Tonight” is at No. 13 and has a good chance of making it his fourth top 10 single in a row. Randy Jackson’s Music Club Vol. 1 opens at a very modest #50 despite all the hype, selling just 12,901 copies. Blake Lewis’ appearance on “Idol” boosted his sales so he got back into the top 200 and is up to 278K total but odds of him making it to 500K is pretty much not going to happen.
Chris Sligh’s “Empty Me’ debuts at No. 29 on the contemporary Christian chart. Jordin Sparks’ “No Air” matches “Tattoo” on the Top 40 charts by hitting at No. 5 and should soon have no problem exceeding it. It was also the top “Idol” alum downloaded song with another 111,000 copies and 706K total. “Tattoo” downloads are up to 1.41 million. Her album sold another 16K and is up to 572K. She’s trending steadily to exceed Taylor’s 701K in about nine weeks or sometime when the “Idol’ finale is on. Carrie’s latest CD sold another 17K and is up to 1.93 million. She should exceed 2 million by mid April. Her first CD is still moving at a 11K clip a week and is up to 6.33 million, the most of any “Idol” so far for any individual album. And a third single is already charting.
Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” is about three months from hitting 6 million in sales. “My December” is up to 757K though Kellie Pickler (at 729K) might pass her at some point. Her sales should jump after her “Idol” appearance and her latest single “Things That Never Cross a Man’s Mind” is still slowly climbing the country charts (at No. 18 right now). Elliott Yamin should have crossed the 500K mark this week while Fantasia is up to 510K. Bucky is up to 331K with a top 15 single still on the country charts. Kat saw a very modest boost in sales from her “Idol” appearance and is up to 369K.
- The TV ratings last week showed “Idol” down about 8 percent from a year ago. Proof perhaps that two weeks of Beatles was a bit much. The Tuesday performance show was down 9 percent, at 27.3 million vs. 30 million a year earlier. The results show was down 6 percent, from 27.1 million a year ago to 25.7 mllion Wednesday.
- And yes, here’s the new Clay Aiken cover. His album “On My Way Here” is out May 6. Here’s modest info from Billboard.com, Claymates!:
Aiken’s “On My Way Here” was produced by Kipper, best known for his work with Sting and Chris Botti. The album will likely include the title track and a song called “Ashes,” but no other details about the project have yet been made available.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t rely too much on covers and focuses on some original stuff to build his own portfolio.
