Yuck – I hope this isn’t true. Apparently, before the finale, Antonella Barba, Haley Scarnato and Gina Glocksen put messages up on their MySpace pages urging their friends to vote for Jordin Sparks. That is rough! I’m not sure why they would feel it’s appropriate to do to Blake Lewis with whom they must tour this summer. If they were from a different season, maybe, but I don’t think fellow cast-members should do this kind of thing. It just isn’t classy, in my books. Well, Antonella and Haley had already shown us that but I was surprised at Gina.

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Post from: Idol Stalker

When Jennifer Hudson was voted off, there was such a public uproar that the question of racism was immediately raised. Even Elton John got involved in the debate, despite the fact that, of the six remaining contestants, at the time, three were black (Fantasia Barrino, La Toya London and George Huff). Ruben Studdard, also African-American, had won the season before. Unfortunately, as is the case with most racial discussions, the two groups involved are usually Caucasians and African-Americans.

Do Other Groups Get Forgotten?

In the uproars and conspiracy theories that have been bestowed upon Idol in these past 6 seasons, one question remains – why have there been no Asian contestants in the top 12? While I definitely had not tapped him to win, I thought Paul Kim was good enough for the top 12. He certainly sang better than Alaina Alexander, Antonella Barba, Leslie Hunt, Nick Pedro and AJ Tabaldo. I guess America didn’t see it that way. Maybe that’s why Sanjaya sticks around. Aside from the fact that he is South Asian, his presence brings diversity to the predictable.

Since writing this post originally, one reader pointed out Jasmine Trias, who I remember being very proud of being Hawaiian (which can consist of any number of cultural backgrounds since Hawaii is known for it’s diverse population) but to the less discerning and vigilant viewer may not have recognized her as being Asian.  If there’s someone else, let me know!

Here are some sites I found this morning after searching the net for others who raised the same question (most were Asian themselves):

• Asian Guy’s American Idol (I’m not even kidding about the name!)
• Yahoo Discussion (wow, was that interesting reading…)
• 8 Asians
• Where Are All the Asians on American Idol (discussion thread)

If anyone finds anything interesting of the subject, send it over!

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Post from: Idol Stalker

Many of the photos I hadn’t seen before and he’s edited them together along with the song “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter.

A little bit of a warning here. These photos are risque, but nothing is completely exposed. The closest is some hands over some bare breasts and a wet t-shirt series. So, you’ve been warned, if you’re interested in watching it continue over the jump.

Post from: Idol Stalker

Taking a quick glance at the poll, the four people that you say will be leaving this week are:

1. Sanjaya Malakar – 55 votes
2. Antonella Barba – 48 votes
3. Haley Scarnato – 21 votes
4. Jared Cotter – 8 votes

We’ll see how it goes, that may be a pretty good guess on those going home. I think Jared my slide by in front of Phil or Sundance though.

• Blake Lewis and LaKisha Jones - SAFE!
• Chris Sligh – SAFE!
• Jordin Sparks – SAFE!
• Phil Stacey - SAFE!
• Jared Cotter – VOTED OFF! (The poll has its first winner!)
• Melinda Doolittle and Brandon Rogers – SAFE!
• Gina Glocksen and Chris Richardson – SAFE!

Time to spotlight Carrie Underwood and her journey through the nights of American Idol, selling 5-time platinum albums and winning lots of Grammy’s as well. Good performance, she’s a great country singer and will have a long career in music.

• Antonella Barba – VOTED OFF! (The poll’s second winner!)
• Stephanie Edwards – SAFE!
• Haley Scarnato – SAFE! (SHOCKER!!)
• Sabrina Sloan – VOTED OFF! (BIG MISTAKE!)

I’m happy for Haley, I think she’s got an audience and isn’t that bad, but she’s not better than Sabrina. Not sure what the final result totals for votes were, but I’ve got to imagine it was a close one.

Next it’s going to be between Sundance and Sanjaya. I sure hope America doesn’t get another one wrong and vote Sundance off and move Sanjaya through to the Final 12. I have a feeling if Sundance makes it to the Final 12, it will be the push that he needs to really start rocking out to what his real style of music and he starts to shine.

Tonight is the 200th Episode of the show. They announce American Idol’s Idol Gives Back. It’s interesting to see that Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell go on a trip to visit Africa to what appears to be a children’s school. This American Idol charitable organization is going to send people all over the country as well. Efforts to help improve the lives of people that are still trying to work out of Hurricane Katrina in Lousianna and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We’ll look at this some more and get more details with another post later. This is a great effort that American Idol is taking on and I really appreciate and admire them for it.

• Sanjaya Malakar – SAFE!
• Sundance Head – VOTED OFF!

I think this is another mistake, but we’ll see. I think he just had too many performances that were just so-so and not enough for people to remember. He didn’t get back into his southern rock kind of style that he really needed to capitalize on to go further in the competition! Simon had a great comment when Ryan asked him what happened, Simon said “the volume was turned down!”

I think Jared, Sabrina and Sundance should have all made it. We’ll see. I’m sure there are plenty of people hoping for some kind of Wild Card option to get one of these four back into the competition.

Post from: Idol Stalker

First of all, why is Ryan Seacrest dressed like Mike Meyers as Deter from Saturday Night Live?

Jordin Sparks
Football is a huge part of her life, not a surprise given that her dad was an NFL player for the Seattle Seahawks. Jordin has picked “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benetar. She’s not doing too badly with it, but I don’t think the judges are going to like, at least not Simon. She looks about 5 years older tonight, and still really reminds me of Kimberly Locke.

• Randy: it’s like a different show when the girls sing, not your best performance, better than all the boys from last night, but not her best performance
• Paula: the energy she brought to the stage was explosive, she’ll be here a long time
• Simon: not quite as enthusiastic as the other too, a bit manic, and shrieky in the middle. 100% she will be here next week

Sabrina Sloan
When she was in high school she wanted to be the next Katie Couric. Sabrina is nailing a powerful song tonight that’s for sure. She’s bringing it vocally

• Randy: not his favorite performance, but she did well with the performance
• Paula: one thing that’s consistent, she can “sing, sing, sing”. Amazing instrument and looks beautiful tonight
• Simon: she’s a great singer, but lacking the emotion, a little bit robotic

Antonella Barba
Has played violin since she was 5 years old. A “no tone” ella is the one to go home this week according to the poll. I’m not saying she’s not talented, but she’s just not at the level the rest of the performers are at this stage. Boring. Let’s see what the judges think.

• Randy: pretty good song choice, still a little pitchy, he thinks she’s a better singer than she’s shown
• Paula: right song choice, with her range she needs to watch out, she’s “magic” in the higher range
• Simon: “you’ve gone as far as you can go”. She’s surrounded by some pretty amazing girl singers. Doesn’t think her voice is going to get any better. He actually mentions some of her media circus and says she’s done well maintaining herself through it all. He just wishes she could sing better

Haley Scarnato
She was a gymnast when she was younger. She dislocated both shoulders and left gymnastics. Another song I don’t recognize, but one thing this song does is allow Haley to show-off her vocal range and strenght. Sounds like she cracks and gets pitchy on a couple of notes. According to our poll, she’s one to go home this week. So far, it looks like it may be her and Antonella as the weaker performances.

• Randy: interesting song choice, okay, not jumping up and down. Just didn’t have any pizazz to it
• Paula: may not have been our favorite song, but she sang it well
• Simon: thought it was horrible, doesn’t feel like she’s made enough of an impact in the competition. He didn’t know her name

Join us for the second part after the jump in the next post.

Post from: Idol Stalker

In interviews with TV Guide following last week’s voting off of Alaina Alexander, Alaina appeared to be very supportive of Antonella and her efforts in going further on the show amidst all the turmoil and chaos of the recent photos online.

“She’s strong, and she’s going to be just fine. Everything that’s going on… she’ll pull through.”

If you’ll remember, Alaina couldn’t quite make it through her encore performance of her song after getting voted out of the contestant pool for Season 6. This is what she had to say about that experience.

As for breaking down in tears during her Thursday-night swan song, to the point that the other gals had to chime in on the lyrics, Alaina told us, “I was OK until the music started, but that triggered something and I had to let it go. But that’s just me. I tried my best!”

What? Alaina shed a tear? She never did that during the regular season.

Post from: Idol Stalker

Gina Glocksen: 22 from Naperville, IL
She’s dedicated her performance to her boyfriend. She’s auditioned multiple times and her boyfriend has supported her. Looks like she almost fell down walking out in that dress and singing at the same time. Boring performance so far, but it will pick up in a minute. She’s not on tonight at all. Very pitchy and feels like she’s pushing to hard to sing this song. Sounds more like screaming than singing. She’s going to take a serious hit tonight.

• Randy – good song choice, little pitchy, must of sounded different.
• Paula – compares her to Carrie Underwood singing it, excellent job though.
• Simon – good song choice, vocals felt very forced at the end. Still confused about who she really is.

— Commercial Break — 

Alaina Alexander: 24 from Redlands, CA
Dedication goes to her mom. Inspired by her mom to keep going because she’s done such a good job providing for her family. I like this song for Alaina, although not a big fan of the original group. She’s doing okay with it I guess. Haven’t really been wowed yet, but Alaina’s really putting it out there with this performance. I think she’s going to need it though. The vocals are real crisp, losing the lyrics with her breathy singing.

• Randy – started off good, tuning and pitch went away
• Paula – hard song to sing, pitch was off but not nearly as bad
• Simon – ran out of steam before the end of the song, lost it in the middle part of the song

LaKisha Jones: 27 from Flint, MI
Dedicating the performance to her grandmother. “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips. I’ve seen this song performed live by Gladys Knight and LaKisha is definitely doing it justice. Coming out strong again and fitting the bill for exactly what she needed to deliver in the song. Not oversinging at all, just letting it flow from those strong pipes. Nice stage presence. Has Paula standing to her feet and dancing a bit, but that doesn’t really take much.

• Randy – that was hot, started kind of rough, turned it around though and delivered
• Paula – she loved it and loves her
• Simon – a phenomenally good singer. Not as good as last week because she didn’t come out with the attitude. Didn’t like the outfit.

— Commercial Break —

Melinda Doolittle: 29 from Brentwood, TN
Dedicating the performance to her best friends. One is her vocal coach and they even given her a book of what to wear each day, which is a little weird honestly. “My Funny Valentine” is a choice to really soften the mood. As my wife says, she sounds like an early Dionne Warwick. Absolutely not a back-up singer anymore. She’s really put some extra vocal stylings into her performance and added some good riffs and slides.

• Randy – we’ve got a competition, came out her tonight to win it. Unbelievable.
• Paula – just outstanding, great phrasing, very different, out of this world.
• Simon – “that was incredible”. Without question the best vocal throughout the competition. Compares her to precocious people with great egos and no talent, and Melinda is exactly the opposite. A breath of fresh air.

— Commercial Break — [Antonella is going to attempt Celine when we return]

Antonella Barba: 20 from Point Pleasant, NJ
She dedicates her performance to her brother who plays guitar and his support means everything. I can’t believe she’s trying to do Celine. I’m not a big fan of Celine and normally don’t care when people try to sing her popular songs, but there’s no WAY Antonella should be doing this. The best news is that I really don’t want her to make it much further and this performance may give me exactly what I want. I can’t wait to hear what the judges say.

• Randy - Completely wrong song, pitch all over the place, way too big a song for her
• Paula – made leaps and bounds from last week
• Simon – most of the vocals just weren’t good enough, worse than last week

— Commercial Break —

Be sure and read the next post for the second half of the girls night for Week 2. Don’t forget to vote in the poll if you haven’t already as well before tomorrow night.

Post from: Idol Stalker

Well, I would say no.  The pictures of Antonella are pretty innocent, when it comes down to it.  The pornography angle has no warrant; there is no law against dressing slutty (for Halloween and New Years, it’s basically required) and Antonella was not paid for the pictures.  Frenchie did nothing illegal also, but her involvement with a porn site seemed to be the deciding factor there.  Antonella is merely the victim of a terrible friend.

The “victim of a terrible friend” makes me think it was probably her friend that tried out with her and didn’t make it. I’m sure she’s sitting at home seething about getting beat out by her. She probably is responsible for leaking the photos in the first place. Did anyone else think it was odd that they were “best” friends, but she doesn’t appear in any of the photos anywhere? 

At this point I don’t care if the photos are real or not. I’ve lost respect for her and won’t send her a single vote from my phone. That doesn’t choke me up at all either since she’s in no way even close to being as good a singer as the other ladies still left to compete against her. 

Be sure and catch the whole story at BuddyTV.

Post from: Idol Stalker

Will there be any news about whether or not Antonella gets the opportunity be voted off before she’s kicked off the show?

Have you voted in our current poll? Who’s going to be voted off this week?

Post from: Idol Stalker

Girl Top Votes:

1. Antonella Barba (12 votes)
2. Leslie Hunt & Nicole Tranquillo (Tied w/ 5 votes)

Interestingly enough, Amy Krebs got “0″ votes.

Guys Top Votes:

1. Sundance Head (19 votes)
2. Sanjaya Malakar (11 votes)

Here’s the actual poll results 

Be sure and check-out our new poll for who’s going home next week. 20 contestants are left, and four more go home next Thursday.

Post from: Idol Stalker