Blog Posts by Lyndsey Parker

Man, it's been a rough couple of years for Jessica Simpson. First she split from her husband and Newlyweds costar, Nick Lachey--who wasted no time rebounding into the arms of Vanessa Minnillo and releasing a breakup-themed solo album that easily outsold Jessica's post-divorce flop, A Public Affair. Then she split from her own rebound beau, John Mayer (who's reportedly since taken up with a new "Friend," Jennifer Aniston), and then when she hooked up with football star Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys, she was accused of cursing the Cowboys games she attended. And now it seems Jessica is the one who's truly cursed, as Us Weekly and Access Hollywood are both reporting that her public affair with Tony has come to an end.

This lovelife snafu could not have come at a worse time for Jessica, as it coincides with the rumored May 17 wedding of her little sister Ashlee to Fall Out Boy rocker Pete Wentz. Ashlee's own new album, Bittersweet World, may have been an even bigger sales failure than

...Syesha Mercado!!

Oh, come on now. Did you REALLY think either of the Davids would get cut tonight? Puh-leeze.

Yes, this just might've been the most anti-climactic episode of  this season. I don't mean this as a burn on Syesha, who's definitely a genuine talent. But many viewers (myself among them) were shocked she made it this far, and it was hard to imagine she could go any farther at this point--not unless one of the frontrunning Davids a) pulled a Mario Vazquez and voluntarily withdrew or b) pulled a Corey Clark and entered into a scandal-mongering affair with Paula Abdul. (I could image the second scenario, maybe, with Cook...but not with Archuleta, of course. Yuck!)

So yeah, it was inevitable that Syesha was a goner tonight. We knew it, the judges knew it, Ryan Seacrest knew it...and I think Syesha knew it, too.

But just because tonight wasn't a particularly suspense episode didn't mean the AmIdol producers weren't going to stretch the show out to a full hour, as usual. So

Hello, and welcome to the most anti-climactic top-three week in American Idol's seven-season history. I say that because, let's face it, Syesha Mercado probably has less chance of making it to next week's finale than previous third-placers like Jasmine Trias and Nikki McKibbin.

Sure, Sy is talented--much more so than Jasmine or Nikki--but this season has been steadily marching towards an inevitable David-vs.-David showdown ever since former frontrunners like Michael Johns and Carly Smithson got out of the Davids' way. If Syesha manages to triumph over either Cook or Archuleta this week, it'll be such a massive upset it'll make Chris Daughtry's elimination seem less shocking than the night that Colton Berry and Garrett Haley went home.

Speaking of going home, tonight was the "hometown" epsiode, during which the final three were supposed to receive heroes' welcomes in their respective hometowns. But this season's homecomings were surprisingly un-homey. I mean, where were the tickertape

A little insider info here: Clay Aiken's new video, "On My Way Here," got lost on its way here. To my office, that is. It was supposed to arrive first thing this past Monday morning at Yahoo! Music HQ, but the longer I waited with baited breath beside the Y! mailbox, the clearer it became that the video was M.I.A.

So a SWAT team of trusty Yahoo! mail clerks was swifty dispatched on a mission to solve this mystery of the missing tape...which basically meant they placed multiple harassing phone calls to hapless UPS switchboard operators.

This was important, people! THE NEW CLAY AIKEN VIDEO WAS LOST IN THE MAIL!!! Did no one understand the heart-stopping gravity of this situation???

Well, eventually, after a series of only-funny-in-hindsight mailroom mishaps, "On My Way Here" did make it way to my office on Tuesday. So, after all the anticipation that'd been building for 24-plus hours, me and my fellow Claymate staffers finally popped Clay's rescued BETA tape into our fancy high-tech

If there was ever an American Idol alum whose music deserved the remix threatment it's...Clay Aiken.

Nah, just kidding, folks. I don't forsee Mr. "I'm Not Trying To Be Justin Timberlake" collaborating with the Neptunes any time soon. I'm talking about a different popular second-placer: last season's Blake Lewis, of course.

The only Idol to ever pass the mic with Doug E. Fresh, beatbox almost every dang time he opened his mouth, and publicly call Taylor Hicks a "d**chebag," Blake actually has been trying his best to be Justin Timberlake. And he hasn't done too shabby a job of it, either. He's brought a little bit of sexy back to AmIdol, that's for sure.

So the beatboxing wonderboy has just released The Remixes EP, featuring electro reworkings by such DJs and producers Dave Aude (Annie Lennox, Britney Spears, Blake's ulitmate idol BT); DJ Dan (Fall Out Boy, New Order), and Jake Benson (Billie Myers, Erika Jayne). If you're curious to get in the mix, listen to it HERE.

"Before He Cheats," the most successful song by the most successful American Idol of all time, is arguably one of the finest woman-scorned anthems in the country music cannon. Nashville Star alum Miranda "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" Lambert is probably still so peeved she didn't get to sing this tune, it's a wonder she hasn't taken a tire iron to Carrie Underwood's Ford auto herself.

If you're one of the few cave-dwellers out there who haven't yet seen Carrie's good-girl-gone-bad "Before He Cheats" video, or if you just feel like savoring her sweet revenge again, here 'tis:

But did you know there was a whole lot more to Carrie's sordid saga of tequila-induced trysting and vehicular vandalism? See, much like George Lucas going back to the future for The Phantom Menace, Carrie has just released the prequel video/single "Last Name," sung from the point of view of the "other woman," to explain what went down before "Before He Cheats."

And unlike The Phantom Menace, "Last Name" is highly

Blimey, what is in the Thames water these days? Seriously, there was a time when the adjective "British" was synonymous with good-mannered, Mary Poppins-style, olde-world charm: tea, crumpets, chip-chip-cheerio, and the like. But nowadays Englishness is more associated with Lily Allen's mouthy MySpace blogs, Lady Sovereign's onstage temper tantrums, Oasis's famously feuding Gallagher brothers, and the multiple drug-related arrests of Britain's ultimate bad-behavior poster children, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty. And crikey, this week is no different.

First, Amy--who's basically the British Britney (or "Brit-ney," if you will), in terms of how much tabloid ink she amasses on both sides of the pond--made news this week not only for saying no, no, no to an opportunity to record the next James Bond theme, but for getting arrested. Again. This latest arrest was connected to the viral video exposed in January by British gossip rag The Sun...a video that depicted the Grammy-winning,

So last night MTV aired the finale of its rockstar-offspring "talent" show Rock The Cradle, on which Crosby Loggins--son of Kenny--snagged the $100,000 grand prize.

Congrats, Crosby.

Crosby was certainly the rightful winner of the Cradle title, considering that the champ on this show also got a record deal and, presumably, a legit chance to follow in those mighty big parental footstep.

Sure, Jesse Blaze Snider (oft-mohawked rocker son of Twisted Sister's Dee) and Chloe Lattanzi (certifiably psychotic spawn of Olivia Newton-John) made for better (read: trainwreckier) TV. But of the final three, good old credible Crosby was the contender with the best chance of actually making it on a major label. And probably the only one of the three that any major-label exec would want to even bother dealing with, to be honest.

However, although Crosby tried to savor his victory and solidify his star status with performances of the Bravery's "Believe" and the Raconteurs' "Steady As She