Kevin Covais hospitalized, misses show

Season 5's 11th-place finalist, Kevin Covais, was hospitalized yesterday morning for unknown reasons and missed a scheduled show at the Burlington County Amplitheater in Westhampton, N.J., with fellow Season 5 contestant Ayla Brown and singer Gabrielle Howarth. Gabrielle posted a blog entry this morning on her official music MySpace page:

Opened up for American Idol Season 5, Ayla Brown. It was fun time! Sang 7 song set!! Unfortunately, Kevin Covais was hospitalized yesterday morning so he was not with us as scheduled. Thoughts and prayers with him.

Kevin is starring in the upcoming feature film College (Aug. 29), which also stars Drake Bell. IDOL LIVE wishes Kevin a speedy recovery.

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VMA update: Best Dancing, BNA categories now open

In a surprising twist of events, no Idol alum - not even Jordin Sparks - made the cut in the Best Pop Video category, which finished winnowing its nominees on Wednesday. The video seemed almost a lock for a nomination, but it unexpectedly fell victim to videos by Danity Kane and Tokio Hotel among others.

There are two more categories open to fans voting for nominations, however, and both feature videos by alums that have a shot at nominations. For the Best Dancing in a Video category, Katharine McPhee's "Love Story" and Paula Abdul's "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" are both (long shot) contenders. But for the Best New Artist category, Jordin looks to have a good shot at a nomination, represented by her videos for "No Air" and "One Step At a Time." Blake Lewis is also on the ballot and is represented by his video for "Break Anotha."

Voting for the categories ends on Wed., Aug. 6, with the final nominees being revealed on Fri., Aug. 8. The VMAs will air live on Sept. 7, 2008, at 9 p.m. on MTV.

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'Idol' BB 200: 'Carnival Ride' #42 (8/9/08)

Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride actually improved in rankings on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for the week of Aug. 9 despite another 6% dip in sales. The disc shifted an additional 11.8k copies but inched up #43-42. Daughtry stayed even at #87, and managed to only fall 3%. Total sales now stand at 4.16 million. Jordin Sparks' self-titled album continued to slide, falling 7 spots to #108, but her 6.4k copies for the week put her total at 863k.

Noticeably missing this week were Ace Young and Jon Peter Lewis, as the former fell off the chart from #160 last week, whereas the latter's sophomore album, Break the Silence, debuted last week and missed the chart entirely. Full chart positions courtesy of 2m over on Pulse are as follows:

042 043 Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride 11,860 -6% 12,634 2,255,032
087 087 Daughtry - Daughtry 7,142 -3% 7,353 4,164,681
108 101 Jordin Sparks - Jordin Sparks 6,448 -7% 6,908 863,581

Total sales are in bold.

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David Archuleta premieres "Crush" on Z100

David Archuleta premiered his new single "Crush" on Elvis Duran & The Morning Zoo on New York's Z100 this morning. Listen to it here. The single will be available at all digital retailers including iTunes on Sept. 2.

A more in-depth analysis will be coming from IDOL LIVE in the very near future.

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Kellie's video for "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" premieres

Kellie Pickler's video for her new single "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" premiered on CMT.com earlier today. The video finds Kellie having fun with friends at a rollerskating park and at a sleepover, while montages of "regular girls" having fun. Watch the video here, or below:



While it is nice to have Kellie's video out, the release is being overshadowed by a certain other Idol alum-turned-country music star's impending video release - Carrie Underwood's video for "Just a Dream" - and "Beautiful" seems to be just the calm before the storm that will surely erupt when it finally does premiere.

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Katharine on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'

Katharine McPhee last night made her first appearance on the talk show circuit in support of her film debut in The House Bunny (Aug. 22) when she appeared on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. The interview was particularly strange, as Jimmy was hung up on a story of Kat suffering a wardrobe malfunction will riding a dolphin on her vacation in Cabo, which eventually went places even Kat must have been surprised. Watch the interview below:



Jimmy also showed the now infamous clip of Tyra Banks feeling Kat's breasts on her talk show last year, which came out of nowhere. Kat did say that her sophomore album should be out in 2009, but did not divulge any specifics except for the fact that she is working with producer David Foster.

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'Idol' Hot 100 - "No Air" #28 (8/9/08)

Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown once again held on to the top spot among all Idol alums on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of Aug. 9 with their duet of "No Air," but it looks to be the last one, as Jordin's current single "One Step At a Time" will most likely pass it next week. "Air" falls #25-28, while "Time" rises #39-34. David Cook's "The Time of My Life" once again inches up, improving from #48-47, and Jennifer Hudson finally breaks into the Hot 100 with "Spotlight" at #96.

As for the Bubbling Under chart, Carrie Underwood debuts at #18 with "Just a Dream," which will should be the first of many appearances on the chart for the song. Full chart positions courtesy of bks over on Pulse are posted below:

Hot 100
28 25 Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown, "No Air"
34 39 Jordin Sparks, "One Step At a Time"
47 48 David Cook, "The Time of My Life"
96 -- Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight"

Bubbling Under
18 -- Carrie Underwood, "Just a Dream"

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IDOL LIVE poll of the week - Haley upsets MJ in final minutes of voting

It came down to the wire in last week's IDOL LIVE poll of the week, and Season 6's Haley Scarnato narrowly defeated Season 7's Michael Johns for the favorite eighth-place finalist among IDOL LIVE readers. A final vote broke a tie in Haley's favor in the final 10 minutes of voting, leaving her with 13 (46%) to Michael's 12 votes (42%). Jon Peter Lewis, Nadia Turner and Bucky Covington all finished with 1 vote each. In this week's poll of the week, we ask who your favorite ninth-place finalist is. You have exactly one week to vote.

A.J. Gil 0 (0%)
Rickey Smith 0 (0%)
Jon Peter Lewis 1 (3%)
Nadia Turner 1 (3%)
Bucky Covington 1 (3%)
Haley Scarnato 13 (46%)
Michael Johns 12 (42%)

Total votes: 28

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Digital sales roundup: "One Step At a Time" #29 (7/26/08)

For the second week in a row, Jordin Sparks led all Idol-related songs on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart. Her current single, "One Step At a Time," rose 8% to #29 with an additional 40.5k downloads. Her duet of "No Air" with Chris Brown continued its downward slide with another 29.3k downloads, falling #35-45. And Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight" came in at #149 with a 17% increase to 9k downloads. Total stands at 42k. Full numbers and chart positions courtesy of bks on Pulse as follows.

029 031 Jordin Sparks, "One Step At a Time" 40,579 8% 37,727 284,228
045 035 Jordin Sparks ft. C., "No Air" 29,369 -10% 32,771 2,304,514
149 182 Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight" 9,008 17% 7,731 42,381

Total sales are in bold.

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