American Idol News

posted by Administrator on May 6

By Allison Stewart
Special to The Washington Post

Of all the “American Idol” contestants, Clay Aiken has always been the most suspiciously pliable. His post-”Idol” debut was a respectable prefab adult contemporary collection, but he stumbled hard with its official follow-up, “A Thousand Different Ways,” a collection of the-record-company-made-me-do-it covers of Bryan Adams and Mr. Mister songs (among others) so flawlessly bad, so devoid of personality, it’s hard to imagine that Kelly Clarkson would have consented to record such a thing on her first day off the bus.

Like Neil Diamond (whose latest album, “Home Before Dark,” also arrives today), Aiken intends his new disc, “On My Way Here,” to be a career-defining work of autobiography. Aiken’s whiz-bang team of producers and songwriters has crafted a declaration of independence that sounds a lot like the one created by the producers and songwriters of his first disc. But it’s better, and livelier, than anything else he’s done, a baseline adult contemporary album that occasionally expands to include synthy R&B (”Weight of the World”), lite rock (”Ashes”) and hooky pop (the title track, written by OneRepublic singer Ryan Tedder).

Aiken has always seemed more interesting than his material and his public would allow for: beatific in voice, prickly in personality. At its best, “On My Way Here” is a recessive blend of sweetness, piety, confusion and barely concealed resentment that occasionally, if unintentionally, bares its teeth. The subtext of every song seems to be, How did I wind up here? Or, alternately, What do you want from me?

Aiken may sing through gritted teeth, but Diamond, who found himself similarly adrift in schlock during his post-”Jazz Singer” years, always seemed to enjoy himself immensely. At least until he met producer Rick Rubin, who rescued Diamond from his rhinestone leisure-suited purgatory more than a decade after working similar magic on Johnny Cash.

Their latest collaboration, “Home Before Dark,” is a follow-up to 2005’s stark and nifty career resuscitator, “12 Songs.” Like its predecessor, it’s steeped in the sort of somberness Rubin confuses with authenticity, though Diamond now occasionally seems more exuberant and less straitjacketed. He sounds more like Neil Diamond — and less like Neil Diamond trying to sound like Johnny Cash trying to sound like Neil Diamond. Though Rubin is accompanied by a band that includes two Heartbreakers, Dixie Chick Natalie Maines — on the perfunctory but pretty duet “Another Day (That Time Forgot)” — and a string section, “Dark” still feels as stripped-down and immediate as “12 Songs,” even when a bigger sound might serve it better.

“Dark” features a similar mix of love songs, homespun homilies and tales of woe, in roughly similar proportions: “Don’t Go There” is one of a host of advice-dispensing ballads; “Pretty Amazing Grace” is one of several “I found love again! And I’m pretty old”-type ballads; the record opening “If I Don’t See You Again” couldn’t offer more tomblike gravitas if it had been sung by Tommy Lee Jones.

On its best track, “Act Like a Man,” Diamond addresses the difficulties facing male musicians who follow the charts instead of their hearts (”Song maker/You heartbreaker/You faker/You better stop it while you can”). Clay Aiken could probably sing the heck out of it, if given half the chance.

Neil Diamond is scheduled to perform at Verizon Center on Aug. 5.

DOWNLOAD THESE: Aiken: “On My Way Here,” “Ashes”; Diamond: “If I Don’t See You Again,” “Act Like a Man”

posted by Administrator on Mar 26

The American Idol second-season runner-up’s fourth album — “On My Way Here” — is scheduled to drop May 6 via 19 Recordings/RCA, Billboard confirmed Friday.

With his role of Sir Robin in Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Shubert Theatre scheduled to conclude May 4, Aiken had previously stated he was “hoping” the album would be out May 6.

“On My Way Here” is being produced by Kipper, a U.K.-based producer best known for working on Sting’s Grammy-award winning “Brand New Day” album.

“We wanted to find someone who had a great reputation and had done stuff in the past that was kind of edgy and current,” Aiken said about Kipper during a February interview with WRAL-TV, a North Carolina CBS affiliate.

Aiken said “On My Way Here” will include “stuff that I’d imagine 90 percent of people have not heard,” adding all the album’s tracks “have to be something I’ll enjoy and that I can do well” while also fitting with the “common theme of ‘On my way here.’”

“We’ve captured some really great moments,” Kipper told WRAL-TV. “I’m very optimistic we’re going to have a record where people will go, ‘Is that Clay? Is that Clay Aiken?’”

In addition to the album’s title track, Aiken said he was also working on a song for it called “Ashes”.

“Someone told me what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” he told WRAL-TV. “[The song] talks about bad things that might happen to you. You know, there’s been some stuff that’s happened in the last five years that I would rather have not happened, but you learn from things like that.”

Aiken hinted a song he wrote with producer David Foster — “Lover All Alone” — might also be included after only previously being available as an iTunes bonus track on “A Thousand Different Ways.”

“It was my first attempt at writing anything, and David Foster wrote the melody,” Aiken told WRAL-TV. “He said, ‘Take it home and write some lyrics.’ [After seven months] I was sitting in Los Angeles, and all of a sudden, I had this idea, and I wrote it in, maybe, 15 minutes.”

“On My Way Here” will be Aiken’s first album since Fall 2006’s “A Thousand Different Ways,” which consisted mostly of covers.

Aiken is expected to embark on a U.S. tour this summer to promote the album, Billboard reported.

posted by AINews on Aug 29

Fox has announced the former American Idol finalists Clay Aiken and Kellie Pickler will both compete in special celebrity Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? episodes that will air on Thursday nights during the November ratings sweeps period.

Additional celebrities who will be appearing on the Mark Burnett-created game show’s November episodes will include Live with Regis and Kelly host Regis Philbin; Access Hollywood correspondent and former Grease: You’re the One that I Want host Billy Bush; skateboarding star Tony Hawk; and Miss America Lauren Nelson.

Similar to Burnett’s recently announced celebrity The Apprentice edition plans, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?’s celebrities will be donating all of the money they earn to charity.

New episodes of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? will air on both Thursday and Friday nights this fall, beginning with a special two-hour episode on Thursday, September 6 at 8PM ET/PT.

posted by AINews on Jul 8

Singer Clay Aiken reportedly had a rough run-in with a female passenger on a Continental Airlines plane he was taking to Tulsa, Okla., for a concert.

The former “American Idol” contestant was en route to Tulsa Saturday when the woman reportedly gave him a “minor shove” during an argument, the Tulsa (Okla.) World reported Sunday.

FBI Special Agent Gary Johnson confirmed the dispute was between a man and a woman and identified the man as a former singer from “American Idol,” the newspaper said.

He said the incident began when the man put his foot on the woman’s armrest. The flight crew diffused the situation and passengers were questioned by agents upon landing in Tulsa, he said. Aiken was not injured and no arrests were made.

Aiken laughed off the altercation during his concert at Tulsa’s Brady Theatre Saturday night, telling the audience he had been beaten up by a girl.

posted by AINews on Jul 7

Clay Aiken apparently has more control over his Claymates than one would think.

“The show Jericho… I loved it. I started blogging about it on my fan site. It got canceled, and I blogged about how upset I was. I said, ‘The Claymates can do anything. How do we get this show back on the air?’” Aiken told The Houston Chronicle on Tuesday.

Jericho — a CBS drama centered on a post-nuclear town in middle America — was canceled by the broadcast network when it announced its 2007-2008 primetime programming line-up in mid-May. However CBS was bombarded with emails and nuts — a reference to a catchphrase in the show — and on June 6 the network announced it had purchased seven new episodes of Jericho for broadcast as a mid-season replacement. So where did the grassroots campaign start?

“Honestly, within a week [the Claymates] had organized a campaign amongst Jericho fans to send nuts to CBS,” Aiken told The Chronicle. “It kind of started in that place. And it’s back on the air! It just blows my mind.”

An unabashed fan of television, Aiken told The Chronicle he feels he’d be “great” on the tube and added he has “probably 15, 17 different shows” to pitch.

“One of the basic ones would just be going around and letting America tell their story. Everybody has a story, if you let them tell it,” Aiken told The Chronicle.

However Aiken apparently hasn’t forgotten his roots if he were to land a recurring role on television.

“I’d love to have a variety show,” he told The Chronicle. “Like Andy Williams or Carol Burnett or Donny and Marie [Osmond]. I remember my mom watched the Mandrell sisters’ show like it was some sort of religion.”

And Aiken would probably have a good support base if he ever wanted to start his own religion. Apparently he could just call on the Claymates.