Season 7 begins....

Yep, that's right. It's already time for the Miss American Idol Season 7 auditions! They start this coming monday in San Diego. If it was up to me there would be some big changes.

1. I would change the age limits. Presently, Miss American Idol wannabes can be anywhere between 16 and 29 at the time of the audition. I think that is WAY too broad. I don't want to see the immature high school kids get up there. I think the finalists should be required to have graduated from high school before making it to hollywood. It's a terrible message to send kids that they can drop out of the middle of the school year and run off to the show. I also don't want to see the older contestants who have been working in the music biz for years up there. Many of them have already been professional back-up singers. They have already had their chance to make it and they didn't. I want to see new and undiscovered talent. Ideally, the age range, in my opinion, should be from 18 to 26.

2. When it comes time for the auditions to be aired in January, I think there should be a requirement that every single person who makes it to hollywood gets at least 20 seconds of air time. These are supposedly the good ones and most of them never get to be seen by the audience. When it gets narrowed down to the top 24, there are at least half of the finalists whom we've never seen before. This would also mean that there would be less time for the lame no-talents who are just trying to be funny. But they aren't funny and I don't care to see them and have them waste my time.

When the thousands of people show up for auditons, they are all hoping to be the next Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson. It's very doubtful that they are aspiring to be a Taylor Hicks or Jordin Sparks. They may have won the crown, but it hasn't translated into huge success. (Maybe Taylor is too old and Jordin is too young to be an immediate smash) There was a great article in the July 27th Entertainment Weekly about the real winners of American Idol. Sadly, it doesn't say anything too hopeful about the future success of Jordin Sparks or Blake Lewis. These people coming to the auditons don't really care about winning. It's just about having a chance to gain exposure and then make something of it.

I'm happy to report that Fantasia is in her 5th week at #1 on the R&B chart with When I See U. It's a great song from an overlooked album. I'm also happy that a release date has been set for the second album by Carrie Underwood. Mark your calendar for October 23rd! Now I just want to know how long we have to keep waiting for the hot new music from Jennifer Hudson???

Fantasia, Tayor and Kelly

I bought the latest Fantasia CD finally. It's been out since December 2006 and I decided to give it a chance. I'm glad to add it to my collection. It's a great edgy collection of R&B jams. One of the songs could be ready to crossover to the pop charts. The track When I See U is #1 on the R&B chart. It's a song that follows the formula set by Mariah Carey's We Belong Together. Mary J. Blige copied it last year with Be Without You and now Fantasia is having success with it. Good stuff. :)

Have any of you bought the Taylor Hicks CD? I have it and I think it is pretty good. There's some funky songs on it that have a good beat and some energy. If you haven't given it a chance, I am suggesting that you do. Why do you think that after he was crowned the Season Five Miss American Idol with the highest amount of people calling in for him, the Soul Patrol hasn't gone into the stores and bought his CD?

The first week numbers regarding Kelly Clarkson are in from Billboard. Here's what they had to say:

In a battle between two top-selling female acts, Miley Cyrus triumphed over Kelly Clarkson to score the No. 1 position on The Billboard 200 with the confusingly titled double album "Hannah Montana 2 (Soundtrack)/Meet Miley Cyrus." The Disney project sold a whopping 326,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Clarkson's embattled "My December" (RCA) opened at No. 2 with 291,000.

A Debut at #2 is nothing to be ashamed of. What do you guys think?

Is this it?

Jordin Sparks may have been crowned the Season Six Miss American Idol, but she hasn't been given much of a chance to relish in her success so far. It seems like her biggest honor so far has been the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

All of the momentum from the win is gone and it seems very unlikely that she will get a #1 song with her debut. Maybe she will get another shot at topping the charts when she releases her full CD in December.

For now the only marketting and promotion the American Idol producers could come up with was a brief appearance on the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular, and she had to share the stage with the first runner-up Blake Lewis. To make her victory as the Season Six Miss American Idol even more insignificant, she and Blake even had to allow the second runner-up, Melinda Doolittle, to sing along with them.

I am an eternal optimist so things can only get better from here....