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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The New Katharine McPhee

A week after the national upheaval over giving the pretty white girl the boot on "American Idol", everyone's still squawking about it. Some are even questioning whether the voting was rigged to increase the drama on the show. Listen, people, instead of worrying about a moderately talented singer, you probably better start paying attention and worrying about what the Republicans are currently trying to do to you and your family.

But the real life drama of an looming explosive political/economic situation aside, we can give credit to Pia Toscano for one thing, she must have one hell of a publicist; she's everywhere. Soon after her dismissal from the Fox talent show, word came quickly that music producer Jimmy Iovine had signed Toscano to a record deal and will have her record an album of ballads. (What? No more white-girl Tina Turner?) And now the Hollywood gossip-mongers are crowing about the "romance" between Toscano and "Dancing With The Stars" dancer, Mark Ballas. (Ryan Seacrest is running a Hollywood School of Dating, i.e. a 'Match.com' service for pairing celebrities who need a beard with celebrities who need to latch on to someone more famous to jump start their careers? Who knew?)


More interesting, TMZ is reporting that Pia was never in the running to win "American Idol". According to tallies of the votes, Pia was always in the middle of the pack, never near the top. So despite the histrionics displayed by the judges at her elimination, (which we're sure made the other contestants feel really good about themselves), Pia was never a real favorite among the show's voters.


We never hated Pia, she's a fine ballad singer. We just couldn't stop laughing when she tried to "get down" on the soul standard "River Deep, Mountain High". If you want to see an example of young singers who actually have the needed "soul" to do justice to the Ike and Tina Turner classic, look no further than a recent episode of "Glee" where Mercedes and Santana, (Amber Riley and Naya Rivera) do the song right. (Scroll down to the next post to see the Youtube clip.)

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