J-LoJust yesterday, I wrote a small piece on the news that Nigel Lythgoe may come back to American Idol in an executive producer role. Well, that was small news compared to what the rumors are now.
By the looks of it, Ellen DeGeneres is out as judge on the show, after only one year on the job. And who’s her replacement? Um, how about Jennifer Lopez. Ok, how about maybe Jennifer Lopez? Nothing is yet confirmed, but it’s the big rumor, at least according to Lisa de Moraes, TV writer for the Washington Post.
From de Moraes:
Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez appears to be the show’s new Paula Abdul. J-Lo’s career has been on the fast track to nowhere of late and, according to the Web site Deadline.com, she’s brokered a deal to step in and replace Ellen, who, in turn, had replaced Paula last season. But some sources said it was not yet a done deal. A Fox rep declined to comment.
For Idol fans, that’s a lot of information to digest in one day. It’s quite obvious to anyone watching last season that no matter how hard they tried, Ellen was simply a bad fit for the show. I’d trust her feedback on hosting stand-up comedians, but not necessarily judging a singing contest.
It only took them one week to figure out how to hide her, but it was one week too late. If you remember during Ellen’s first week, she had to lead-off with the judging early in the show and looked like a deer in headlights. Every show after that, when she didn’t lead in the judging anymore and they had Randy as the lead-off hitter, it just showed the audience how week Ellen was.
As for J-Lo, I’m not sold on her as a judge, but for different reasons. She’s not a good singer, but she definitely knows the ups and downs of both the movie industry and the music industry. In fact, she’s kind of experiencing the downs in both industries right now.
She’ll bring a Hollywood feel to the show and will immediately be the biggest star and biggest presence. But I think that’s a bad thing. Because she’s the most famous person, she’ll be expected to replace Simon, rather than who she’s truly replacing in Ellen and Paula. If she can be the Paula/Ellen, I think she’d do fine, but her presence is too big for that role, unless they really hit on who replaces Simon.
If these are all the changes, it will be a tremendous letdown. But if they have someone huge in mind for Simon (my vote is on Justin Timberlake), then I think J-Lo can work.
I’m sure this won’t be my last update about this. Maybe it’s just begun.
Photo of Jennifer Lopez licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Rihanna I was only going to write about Rihanna, but other bits of news came out today that I thought were interesting as well.
Rihanna
According to MTV.com, Rihanna has joined the cast of the upcoming Peter Berg directed film, Battleship, which I’m assuming is a take on the classic kids’ game.
She’ll join my man Tim Riggins (aka Taylor Kitsch from the TV show Friday Night Lights) and Alexander Skarsgård, who is best known for his role in True Blood.
It will be the first movie for the pop princess who has a number one single out there with Eminem, called Love The Way You Lie. The movie is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2012.
The show is reportedly close to a deal to bring back producer Nigel Lythgoe (who left in 2008) in an executive producer role while targeting new candidates including Justin Timberlake and Elton John as potential replacements for Cowell, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
While the article does say that getting Timberlake would be a long shot, he’d be the perfect replacement. I can’t believe I never thought about him. In my opinion, he’s just as talented a TV performer as he is a music artist. If you’ve ever seen him on Saturday Night Live, you know what I mean. He’d be the anti-Cowell, but he’d bring instant credibility, super stardom, and the ability to create off the top of his head.
The article also says Lythgoe isn’t a fan of the four judge panel, which could be bad for Kara DioGuardi who is the only judge with a little bit of Cowell in her. It would also be bad for me as I think I may just be her biggest fan.
Kanye West
Kanye West made the Silicon Valley rounds today, showing up at both Facebook and Twitter headquarters. He also created a Twitter account and you can find him @kanyewest.
He previewed some lyrics from his new album, which he says is now not going to be called Good Ass Job. I always liked that name.
Every couple of weeks, I make a couple of new mix CDs to listen to on my 40-or-so-minute each way commute to work, basically culling my current favorite tracks to create my very own Lorentz-centric Top 40 radio station. Just like any other Top 40 radio station, it’s all about the hits (hits with me, anyway): the playlist is necessarily limited (I can rarely fit more than 20 songs on a CD) and repetitive (the CD ends, it starts over). I love it. It drives my kids nuts. Just the other day, when the latest a-ha single “Butterfly, Butterfly” came on, my oldest (who invariably gravitates to “Take On Me” whenever there’s a karaoke machine nearby) begged me to skip it. I didn’t then, but eventually, I will. And that will be when I know it’s time for a new mix CD.
Lately, my morning commute mix CDs have been filling up with a surprising number of country songs. Now, while I’m certainly not one to dismiss country as a genre – I grew up with Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys, and thanks to my Dad, I have a very deep love and respect for Willie Nelson – I’m no aficionado either. And as much as I’d like to say I keep an open mind, I have to admit that I’m more open-minded when we’re talking about Scandinavian dance pop than when we’re talking about guys named Garth and Randy who like to wear cowboy hats. I don’t know if it’s the music that’s changing or if it’s just me, but there’s just a lot of country music out there right now that’s, y’know, really good. And I’m not just talking about hipster-approved alternative country. That’s all fine too, but I’m talking about actual country hits. You know, country songs that are genuinely popular with country audiences, and increasingly with pop-crossover audiences as well.
For instance, Brad Paisley‘s “Water”, the fourth single from his 2009 album American Saturday Night which recently enjoyed a stay at the top of the country charts
Brad Paisley “Water”
What I love about this song – and all of Brad Paisley‘s songs really – is how he never wastes a verse. There’s nothing throwaway about how he builds a story, or in this case, builds a monument to something as almost cheesily simple, common, and universal as water. I mean, how dorky does this idea seem on paper? Hey guys, let’s do a song about how great water is. (While we’re at it, why not a song about how cool it is to see stuff?) But verse by verse, he details his ongoing “love affair with water” with images from snapshots that could be sitting in just about anybody’s photo album – the “inflatable pool full of Dad’s hot air” – until you realize that while he might be stating the obvious, sometimes the obvious thing is the easiest to take for granted, and it needs to be stated. Moreover, the song’s joyous invitation to hop into the car and “drive until the map turns blue” has taken on an unintentional and tragic urgency with news of the BP oil spill and its disgusting political and environmental implications casting a depressing pall over this summer season.
Like Brad Paisley, Georgia’s Zac Brown Band is currently riding on an album that’s destined to be regarded not just as one of the great country albums, but just one of the great albums of its time, period. Although they’ve been sending hits up the country charts and the Billboard Hot 100 since their major label debut The Foundation was released two years ago, it was their amazing 2010 Grammy Awards ceremony performance of their signature hit “Chicken Fried” done as a medley with “America the Beautiful” all dressed up in defiantly ragged harmonies, that established once and for all the force of nature this band is. Although their previous hits have had something of a novelty factor to them, this year they’ve sent two gorgeous ballads up the charts: “Highway 20 Ride”, a heartbreaking post-divorce father-to-son confessional, and “Free”, a song about being young, broke, and in love, and living out on the road – a song feels as big and endless as the road itself, and even gives a musical nod to Van Morrison’s classic “Into the Mystic.” Even as “Free” is still making its way up the Hot 100 (where it entered the Top 40 a couple weeks ago), the album’s sixth single “Different Kind of Fine” – a light-hearted romp celebrating a fine specimen of true country womanhood – has just landed on the country charts. I double-dog dare you not to dig it.
Zac Brown Band “Different Kind of Fine”
With his full beard and trademark knit caps, Zac Brown is one of those guys that’s made country radio playlists safe for guys who don’t wear cowboy hats. North Carolina native singer-songwriter Eric Church is a baseball hat kinda guy with a great voice – a boyish, impish, and immediately lovable tenor that he uses to fine effect on songs about love and how nice it is to be naughty. But for its decidedly un-PC celebration of liquor and death sticks, Church’s latest single “Smoke a Little Smoke” barely even qualifies as country, sounding like cross between a Ry Cooder electric blues and a Collective Soul arena rock anthem circa 1993, with all the requisite post-grunge quiet-loud-quiet dynamics. Country as a genre has proven itself relatively slow to evolve. But with the ongoing popular success of Eric Church (and Zac Brown and Brad Paisley), the fish may, in fact, be growing a small set of legs.
