Kelly Clarkson was sighted on multiple networks earlier this evening following the profiling of her music director, Jason Halbert, on the kickoff documentary "Get Schooled: You Have the Right." The initiative, which is a co-founded by Viacom and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a brand-new five-year public service effort to encourage the nation's students to stay in school and graduate. Watch Jason's piece of the documentary below, which shows him pursuing a degree at BerkleeMusic.com:
Others profiled during the half-hour piece include one of President Obama's speechwriters, Sarah Hurwitz, and LeBron James' marketing exec Latesha Williams. The over-sized PSA was simulcasted on Viacom-owned cable operations such as MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.
The following are Idol-related odds and ends that happened this week:
>Paris Bennett uploaded new material onto her official music MySpace the other day in the form of three new tracks including "The One," "Wide Open" and her cover of "Rapture of Love." Paris, who finished fifth on the fifth season of Idol in 2006 and gave birth to her first child last year, was originally supposed to record a jazz album for a spring 2009 release, but these songs are more in the modern R&B vein.
>Jordin Sparks headlined VH1's "Save the Music" concert with John Mayer aboard Carnival's Splendor cruise ship on Thursday. ET was there to cover the event, and interviewed Jordin and many other attendees on the red carpet, which can be seen below:
Jordin and John performed a few of their own songs together, including "Tattoo."
>Currently in the midst of promoting his latest album The Distance, Taylor Hicks took to the stage on Live with Regis & Kelly this morning to perform his single "What's Right Is Right." Watch the performance below:
Taylor chatted with the two co-hosts following his performance in which he discussed his date with "Treat" as part of the show's "Win a Date with Taylor Hicks" promotion a few weeks back, during which Taylor was visibly uncomfortable.
>While out in Hawaii filming her latest film, You May Not Kiss the Bride, Katharine McPhee has been keeping busy by making a few appearances at local events, including the grand opening of Honolulu's Miu Miu retail location. Per The Honolulu Star Bulletin:
Prada Corp. celebrated the grand opening of its Miu Miu store last night with a well-attended party of some of Honolulu’s most stylish, as well as a handful of celebs, including “Lost’s” Michael Emerson, dressed in crisp white linen, homegrown actress/singer Tia Carrere and “American Idol” season five finalist Katharine McPhee, who’s also working on her acting skills.
Katharine had a busy week, as she celebrated her 25th birthday on Wednesday.
>The ratings for Thursday's results show were not much off what they normally are, as the episode yanked in 20.6 million viewers in the first half-hour and 24.1 million viewers in the second half-hour, averaging 22.4 million for the entire episode. These numbers were enough to crush the rest of the competition, and Wednesday's special performance episode averaged 25.6 million viewers over two hours, which is a bit above average for the season.
Maybe President Obama should interrupt the prime time schedule more often after all?
Jordin Sparks has a busy next three days ahead of her. Not only will she be singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at tomorrow's NFC Championship game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Philadelphia Eagles in Glendale, Ariz., but she will make an appearance at one of President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural balls on Tuesday.
Jordin's mom confirmed that she will in face be performing at the Commander-in-Chief Inaugural Ball, hosted by the president-elect, on Tuesday. The ball, which was conceived by President George W. Bush in 2005, will be broadcast live to American forces around the globe. George Lopez and Miss America Kirsten Haglund will also appear.
Jordin will not be the only Idol alum in attendance at one of the many inaugural bashes. It was announced late last year that Daughtry would be headlining the Congressional Youth Leadership Council's ball.
Daughtry will perform at one of the million-and-a-half inaugural balls being held for president-elect Barack Obama from Jan. 20-21, 2009. Rebecca Patterson of Sikeston, Mo., will be one of the lucky few to see him perform (Daughtry, not Obama) at the ball, as reported by KFVS Heartland News 12:
She will attend the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009. Besides watching the swearing in, she'll also attend on the black-tie inaugural balls with headline entertainment from American Idol singer Chris Daughtry.
Although she said seeing Obama being sworn in is going to be "memorable" and that she will "tell [her] grandkids about [it] one day," IDOL LIVE is willing to bet she is secretly more excited to see Chris.
Introduced as "Academy Award Winner" on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Thursday, Season 3's seventh-place finalist, Jennifer Hudson, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before many thousands of spectators at Invesco Field. The resounding performance was just one aspect of a very historical night, which was capped off by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech for his party's nomination for the presidency. Watch the performance below:
Jennifer was personally asked by the senator to sing the Anthem. Her debut album, Jennifer Hudson, is set for a Sept. 30 release. She will next appear on the silver screen in The Secret Life of Bees alongside Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning.
At the request of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Season 3's seventh-place finalist Jennifer Hudson will sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" tonight before the democratic nominee accepts his party's nomination tonight in front of over 70,000 supporters at Invesco Field in Denver.
It is not clear what time the Oscar winner will perform the Anthem, but it will at least be seen on all cable news networks (CNN, FNC and MSNBC) and C-SPAN.
Jennifer's current single, "Spotlight," now has a remix on which Def Jam rapper Young Jeezy is featured on available at iTunes. Her debut self-titled album will be released Sept. 30.
As expected, David Archuleta's debut single "Crush" took a hefty fall in its second week, as its 46% decline was good for another 89.5k downloads and a #6 entry on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart. Its total stands at a healthy 255.7k. The next highest Idol-related track was once again Jordin Sparks' "One Step At a Time," which witnessed a two-spot climb to #16 with an eight percent increase to 58.5k downloads for the week. It is just shy of gold status, sitting at 491.k downloads.
Following Jordin was David Cook, whose coronation single "The Time of My Life" finally saw a drop, and a big one at that, as it plummeted 18 spots to #45 with another 29.3k downloads. It appears it may take a little longer than expected to reach platinum status, as it now totals 822k. Jennifer Hudson, on the other hand, saw her "Spotlight" minimally increase once again, as its gain of seven percent put its total north of 78k. It will be interesting to see how the single is effected by her "Star-Spangled Banner" performance before Sen. Barack Obama receives his party's nomination tomorrow night in Denver.
And despite the fact that there are no Carrie Underwood numbers to report this week, there are numbers to report for Daughtry's "What About Now," which enters the chart at #161 with 8.6k downloads. Its total is 300k on the dot. Full numbers and chart positions courtesy of bks on Pulse as follows.
006 001 David Archuleta, "Crush" 89,472 -46% 166,247 255,719 016 018 Jordin Sparks, "One Step At a Time" 58,494 8% 54,252 491,528 045 027 David Cook, "The Time of My Life" 29,343 -32% 43,170 822,001 149 156 Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight" 9,417 7% 8,834 78,272 161 --- Daughtry, "What About Now" 8,626 24% 6,955 300,633
Many Americans are still reeling over the shocking elimination of Australian native Michael Johns. From Ryan's classless teasing of Michael over whether or not he would actually be voted out to the judges' dumbfounded expressions, nothing about last night's results show.
The bottom 3, which consisted of Michael, Carly Smithson and Syesha Mercado was expected by many, but the actually ranking was not. Syesha was heavily favored to be leaving after her vocally-good but emotionless version of Fantasia's "I Believe."
Michael said he was surprised, but he went out with class and gave his final performance of Aerosmith's "Dream On" his all. Paula was the most visibly upset judge during the performance, and gave him a big bear hug following the performance.
Before the bad news was delivered, the show went fairly smoothly. The opening number of "Shout to the Lord" was vocally on par with the previous night's performance, and the videos of the three presidential candidates (Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton) were more than enough to put the show in a spirited mood. A few more celebrity appearances from Ricki Lake and Michael Chiklis also helped the donating mood carry over from the previous night.
Despite the extremely early exit by Michael, it would be foolish to think he will not find success in at least some capacity in the music industry. The sometimes-rocker and blues artist will most definitely ride his "Daughtry wave" as far as he can, and his multitude of angry fans will make sure his material tops the charts.
This coming week will be known as "Idol Gives Back" week, as an event that only American Idol can pull off will take place over a three-night span.
Kicking off festivities will be the Top 8 finalists when they perform inspirational songs on Tues., April 8. The following night, Idol begins at 7:30 p.m. ET for a special two-and-a-half hour event that will be filled with celebrities, guest performers and performances by the finalists. Those slated to make appearances on Wednesday's episode include Amy Adams, Annie Lennox, Ashley Tisdale, Billy Crystal, Bono, Brad Pitt, Carrie Underwood, Celine Dion, Chris Daughtry, Dane Cook, Eli and Peyton Manning, Elliott Yamin, Fantasia, Fergie, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Connolly, John Legend, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Reese Witherspoon, Robin Williams, Snoop Dogg, Vanessa Hudgens and senators Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
Corporate partners with Idol for the special that will be making large donations include ExxonMobil, News Corp., Ford, Coca Cola, AT&T and Allstate.
Last year, the event raised a combined $76 million from viewers and corporate donors. Considering the fact that this year's event is set to be even bigger and better than last year's, put money on the total being significantly larger this time around.
And the week will wrap up on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. ET, when the Top 7 is revealed and Jordin Sparks performs her hit single "No Air" with Chris Brown.
So, get ready to hit the couches, or in many cases, the TiVos.
IDOL LIVE is the place to stay up to date with the most current news on past, present and possibly future American Idol contestants, in addition to discussing the show in real-time as it happens.
.JPG)
.jpg)
