Sunday, August 31, 2008

Carrie returns to her alma mater

Carrie Underwood returned to campus on Friday when she performed for hundreds of fans at Northeastern State University's celebration of its centennial countdown in Tahlequah, Okla. She sang "Praise the Lord, I Saw the Light" in addition to a few of her own mega successful hits. According to this article in The Muskogee (Okla.) Phoenix, Carrie was a hit with the crowd:

Jenks Middle School students Libby Hanford, Savannah Fuller and Kayla Bauman huddled together to write a fan note to Carrie Underwood. It said "Dear Carrie, we would like you to know how much we love you."

Savannah said she and her friends were in town visiting her grandfather, who she said was an NSU psychology instructor.

"And he said he had a surprise for me," she said.

She said she and her friends got to the NSU campus at around 4 p.m.

"We were here before she was here," she said, pointing to Underwood, who was sitting behind a barricade before her concert. "We’re going to have a policeman give the note to her."
Vitamin Water, which sponsored Carrie's trip to her alma mater, was on set filming a new commercial for its product, which in all likelihood will feature her in it.

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

Jennifer Hudson's Anthem performance at the DNC

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.

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Jasmine Trias to perform in "Sister Act" concert

Season 3's second runner-up, Jasmine Trias, will appear in "Sister Act" - a concert that will be held at the Victoria Gardens Cultural Center in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The concert's purpose is to inspire area children interested in tackling a career in music to follow their dreams.

Jasmine, who is of Filipino descent and calls Hawaii home, will display her own talents alongside the performers, who are also Filipino and range from six to 16 years old.

This is not the first time Jasmine has participated in an inspirational engagement, as she has previously judged a young talent competition on the Tyra Banks Show. "Sister Act" will take place on Sun., Sept. 14.

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Poll of the week update: feels like it's May 20!

Wowzers! After only two and a half days of voting, the IDOL LIVE champion poll has generated nearly 3,000 votes. This is leaps and bounds more participation than any other poll of the week has received. It is now a fight between David Archuleta and David Cook, and, there are either way more fans of each than IDOL LIVE expected, or the Cookies (and Archies) are busy cookie-cleaning. Below are the current results:

David Cook 1,491 (48%)
David Archuleta 1,492 (48%)

Elliott Yamin 3 (0%)
Chris Daughtry 51 (1%)
Brooke White 2 (0%)
Kellie Pickler 11 (0%)
Kristy Lee Cook 1 (0%)
Haley Scarnato 1 (0%)
Chikezie 0 (0%)
Stephanie Edwards 0 (0%)
Melissa McGhee 0 (0%)

With 11 days to vote, it will be interesting to see which David is able to withstand the long haul.

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Friday, August 29, 2008

Ruben in the red

The second season's champion is following in the footsteps of Wesley Snipes, as he has failed to pay $193,650 in taxes to the state and federal government. Ruben Studdard, who was dropped by J Records last December, has not yet commented on the matter.

The majority of the taxes, according to court documents, are from 2003 when he did not pay $19,581 in state income taxes and $163,836 in federal taxes and was also issued property liens for $2,149 in state and $8,083 in federal for the 2005 fiscal year.

Ruben's tax woes comes on the heels of his marriage to Surata Zuri McCants in June. He is also involved in a legal dispute between his former record company, Sony BMG, and apparel line Louis Vuitton over the former's illegal use of the latter's trademarks in Ruben's music videos and on his third record, The Return, which Sony BMG has agreed to stop producing.

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

'Idol' BB 200: 'Carnival Ride' #35 (9/6/08)

It was once again a mixed bag for Idol-related albums on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for the week of Sept. 6. Led by Carrie Underwood for the umpteenth time, only three albums with Idol ties made the chart. Carrie's Carnival Ride rose three spots to #35, its highest chart position since the week of July 19 when it was also at #35.

The battle for second place among Idol alums between Daughtry and Jordin Sparks carried on as expected, with Daughtry's self-titled album falling eight spots to #78. Jordin Sparks came in at #80 after a nine-spot drop.

There are no sales figures to report at the current time, but they will be posted if and when they become available. Full chart positions courtesy of 2m over on Pulse are as follows:

ETA: sales #s are courtesy of tony over on Pulse.

35 38 Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride, 11,223 -1% 11,364 2,298,379
78 70 Daughtry - Daughtry, 6,963 -0% 6,988 4,193,092
80 71 Jordin Sparks - Jordin Sparks, 6,874 -0% 6,896 891,567

Total sales in bold.

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Kevin Covais: "I am feeling great!"

Season 5's 11th-place finalist, Kevin Covais, posted an update on his official site in which he says he is "feeling great." The message reads:

"Hey everybody! I am happy to announce that I am currently at home and I am feeling great! I just wanted to say thank you and send my love to all of you who have showed concern over the past few weeks, and let you know that all is well! I can’t tell you how excited I am for everything going on in my life right now, including the release of my first feature film "College" which hits theaters nationwide this Friday, August 29th!"
IDOL LIVE is glad to hear Kevin is in good spirits and is recovering from his mystery illness. As for his film debut, College, it will open in 2,123 theatres on Friday and is expected to make $8.4 million among registered users on BoxOfficeMojo.com and $6 million according to Gitesh Pandya at BoxOfficeGuru.com for the four-day weekend.

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Jennifer Hudson set to sing National Anthem

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.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

IDOL LIVE poll of the week - Melissa McGhee's got it

Melissa McGhee lost on the fifth season of Idol as soon as she made it to the Top 12, but she did win this week's poll of the week with a resounding four votes, good for 33 percent. Out of an embarrassing total of 12 votes, the next closest competitor was Season 7's David Hernandez, taking 3 votes (25%).

But now that this phase of the poll of the week series is over, it is time to pick the IDOL LIVE Top 12 finalist champion. You will have two weeks to vote for your choice.

Vanessa Olivarez 1 (8%)
Leah LaBelle 1 (8%)
Lindsey Cardinale 1 (8%)
Melissa McGhee 4 (33%)
Brandon Rogers 2 (16%)
David Hernandez 3 (25%)

Total votes: 12

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