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Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > September > 29
Monday, September 29, 2008
9/30: Michael Johns in Australia, Kellie Pickler’s CD is out today!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s former Buckhead man Michael Johns promoting himself in his native land of Australia on Nova 96.9 by singing a bluesy tune “Fool’s Gold” likely to end up on the new album. He compares it to Van Morrison/Joe Cocker meets INXS. Good tune!
-Both Jennifer Hudson and Kellie Pickler have albums out today. Who will outsell who? It’s going to be close! I bet both will sell in the 50,000 range. Reviews for Kellie’s disc aren’t bad.
Detroit News:: Kellie Pickler’s second album is another solid step toward country stardom.
Here’s Canadian Press
With “Kellie Pickler,” her second CD, she improves at crafting songs that express her natural exuberance, and the emotional depth behind it.
USA Today: Kellie Pickler, “like Dolly Parton or Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, loves to set up stereotypes only to confound them,” says an impressed Brian Mansfield.
LA Times (2.5 stars:) The standout is “Best Days of Your Life,” which she wrote with 18-year-old Taylor Swift, who sings harmonies too, taunting an ex about how he’ll regret leaving soon enough.
-Quick observations from “Dancing With the Stars.” Openly gay Lance Bass kisses Lacey Schwimmer, who dance to that ode to experimental lesbianism “I Kissed a Girl.” Rocco Dispirito needs to go back to cooking cos he wasn’t cooking on the dance floor. Toni Braxton is a comer. She could land top 4 easily. Kim Kardashian? Eye candy but her dance steps are robotic and simplistic. Pussycat DULL. Misty May-Treanor: Intensity squared! Could use more emotional expression on the face. Cloris Leachman gets applause for simply being upright but she definitely plays a character well. Susan Lucci knows how to smolder after all those years on a soap, and wow, what a bod! She’s a bit cautious but she’s safe.
And I prefer happy Warren Sapp over the serious “Matrix” version tonight but he wasn’t half bad.
My prediction: Rocco is a goner. Cloris had the lowest judges’ score but who cares? She’ll get the votes for now.
-You can now download David Cook’s “Light On” via iTunes. Lara told me she heard Q100 play “Light On.” It should get some fair amount of sampling from top 40 stations and give “Crush” a run for its money!
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9/29: Jennifer Hudson’s album finally out, LaKisha getting hitched
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I would have posted sooner but my laptop hard drive had a heart attack and died. Tech folks are trying to glean data out of it. I hope they do because even as it was grinding on Friday, I stupidly did not back up key files. I can only pray or a couple of stories I’m working on might be in jeopardy. I never learn!
Anyway, I’m on a temporary laptop for now and here’s the “Idol” news I can glean for now: (UPDATE: the tech folks replaced my hard drive and retrieved my data. Phew!)
Here are clips from newspapers that have interviewed Jennifer Hudson. No clue if they had preconditions but her personal life or talk about her cover are not referenced in any of the three stories below:
Despite her familiarity from the movies, television and prominent gigs like singing the national anthem last month at the Democratic National Convention in Denver (at the request of Senator Barack Obama) Ms. Hudson is still a risky proposition in the music industry. She’s on the brink of household-name status yet hasn’t scored a hit song of her own. She has a bold, powerful voice but not the centerfold physique of most of the women who top the pop charts. And that Oscar has created expectations difficult for any first-timer to meet.
From USA Today
More than four years ago, when the then-unknown singer finished seventh on Season 3 of American Idol, she delivered an “exit speech. I said, ‘I don’t know when or where or how, but God has something in store for me.’ I think the judges or producers kind of laughed.”
Hudson, 27, laughs herself at the memory, and with good reason. Not long after making that prediction, she landed a key role in the star-studded screen adaptation of Dreamgirls, and wound up winning an Academy Award.
Heck, even the Wall Street Journal talked to her.
Ms. Hudson: I have a great sense of who I am and I’ve never been one to duplicate or imitate. What was challenging was that because of the award for “Dreamgirls” and the attention from the film, it added pressure on me — not in the acting, but in the music. I’ve been singing music from other artists that came from a different time and I’m always compared to them. So it’s been challenging to be me and be current, while still connecting to everything I’ve portrayed so far. It would make me nervous when I’d walk the streets. It’s all different kinds of people approaching me, and I’d think, “What am I offering all of them?”
And here’s a great blog entry from the Los Angeles Times’ brilliant writer Ann Powers about why we connect with Jennifer Hudson and David Cook.:
When these singers really let go, their voices smash through the limits imposed by their bodies and personalities, making them golden. That’s what we once wanted from great singers — fat or scrawny, pimpled or aging, they could blow away our prejudices. Imperfection is highly discouraged in corporate pop now, but for Hudson and Cook, it helps; more glamor would dampen the wonder of their performances. That’s why it’s sad to encounter so much airbrushing in the new musical products meant to secure their places as pop stars.
And then she gets into the critique of her album:
Hudson’s self-titled debut album, to be released next week, has been so long in coming that it’s no surprise how focus-grouped it feels. Ten producers over 13 tracks does not make for a strong artistic identity. If this were Hudson’s fifth or even third album, the variety might have worked: Hudson’s helmsmen would have had a strong persona to embrace or oppose. As it is, she’s the one bending to adapt, pleasing everyone but receding at the same time.
-Here is her appearance (at the 35 minute point) on Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show.”
She addresses her fiance David Otunga, noting he’s an attorney and Harvard grad. She conveniently omits the fact he was “Punk” on the reality show “I Love New York 2.” She told Jay that he proposed to her by blindfolding her on a beach, have her dig up a bunch of messages, then giving her the ring. And she sings “Spotlight.”
-Kristy Lee Cook with “Why Wait” opened with just 9,552 in sales and #49 on the Top 200. That’s far below Kellie Pickler and Bucky Covington, both which opened around 60,000 to 70,000 and not even as good as Phil Stacey, which opened at 13,000 earlier this year. So her 15 minutes are indeed… up, eh?
-LaKisha Jones is getting married Sunday to a guy named Larry Davis in Beverly Hills. Gina Glocksen and Melinda Doolittle are set to attend, according to Idol Chatter in USA Today.
