Blog Posts by Lyndsey Parker

Well, after weeks of speculation and rumors, an Associated Press newswire story has reported that, according to his alleged former employer, season 7 Idol contestant David Hernandez once was a private dancer, a dancer for money, at a nude male strip club in Phoenix unsubtly called Dick's Cabaret.

"He had the look and the type that people like, so he made pretty good money here," the club 's manager, Gordy Bryan, told AP. Gordy also specifically claimed that David used to do the Full Monty and perform lap dances for Dick's Cabaret's "mostly male" customers.

While neither David nor Idol's producers have addressed this issue publicly, the speculation and rumors are now focused on whether or not this revelation will disqualify David from the competition. This remains to be seen, since Idol's past manner of handling contestant scandals has been schizophrenically flip-floppy: Producers kicked off 2003 finalist Frenchie Davis when topless photos of her surfaced online, but allowed Antonella

Many cubicle dwellers probably like to whittle away their office hours on cuteoverload.com, the famously fluffy feelgood site dedicated to painfully precious pics of sad-eyed kittens, day-old puppies, and thimble-sized hamsters.

But they'd be better off getting their virtual cute fix from Britain's cutest, cuddliest export, Kate Nash, and her new a-frickin-dorable video, "Pumpkin Soup." 'Cause those kittens any got nothin' on Kate.

A video so sugar-coma-inducingly sweet viewers are advised to take a shot of insulin before pressing play, "Pumpkin Soup" is a cartoonish, cute-overloading, rainbow-brite explosion of candy hearts, pink teddy bears, fuzzy animal costumes, 99 red balloons, and G-rated kissing booth action.

It makes the latest Miley Cyrus video look like an outtake from Schlinder's List, it's so bloody cute. You know, maybe there ought to be a website called kateoverload.com...

Anyway, watch Kate now and feel the love:

Not too long ago, J Records said goodbye to season 2 American Idol winner Ruben Studdard, releasing him from his recording contract. So it's a little ironic that Ruben will now be saying goodbye to the newest crop of Idol castoffs, as he's been chosen to sing season 7's official farewell song (a cover of Kenny Loggins' "Celebrate Me Home," oddly).

Will "Celebrate Me Home" be able to do for Ruben's stalled career what season 5 sendoff song "Bad Day"--one of the most downloaded songs in SoundScan history--did for Daniel Powter's? Apparently 19 Management (which still represents Ruben, and has signed him to subsidiary label 19 Recordings) hopes so.

"Ruben has never left our fold," Idol mastermind Nigel Lythgoe explained to Billboard. "[With] the success that we've had with the play-off song, I wanted to keep it in-house."

Well, keeping it in-house certainly worked last season, when Idol alum Chris Daughtry's future monster smash "Home" served as the weekly exit theme. And if "Celebrate

This week's Idol elimination round included some shockers, like Amanda Overmyer making it through (gee, thanks a lot, Vote For The Worst!) and authenticity-challenged rock dude Robbie Carrico not exactly rocking the vote. But the biggest Thursday-night surprise for me, personally, was all the waterworks.

Seriously, after this week, American Idol should consider dropping core advertisers Ford and Coca-Cola, and just having every elimination episode sponsored by Kleenex. Or maybe by a suicide-prevention hotline.

OK, look...unlike Simon, I don't have a heart of granite. I swear. I do understand how difficult it must be for the castoffs when their dreams are prematurely crushed, especially when they're forced to sing one last depressing, dejecting time. (Poor Alaina Whitaker could barely squeak out a note Thursday night, and I didn't blame her one bit.)

Furthermore, I do understand that it's emotionally taxing when the remaining finalists must bid adieu to the people with whom they've

For the record, no one at Yahoo! Music has ever written a record review without actually listening to the record first. While it's admittedly pretty easy to guestimate what, say, the new Jessica Simpson or Hilary Duff album will sound like, and it's tempting to bypass spinning such records entirely, we do still listen to them--so you don't have to!

But unfortunately, the same can't be said for other, possibly lazier publications--namely men's mag Maxim, which came under fire this week after it was revealed that one of its writers had allegedly given the new Black Crowes disc, Warpaint, two and a half out of five stars...without listening to it.

Now, granted, most Maxim subscribers probably don't enjoy the magazine chiefly for its articles. (And any guy who claims otherwise is likely a liar.) But it's the principle of the matter here. What if some Maxim "reader," skimming over a softcore pictorial of Heidi Montag in La Perla lingerie, stumbled upon that so-so Crowes review and

Last night was episode two of '70s Week on American Idol--and to very loosely quote '70s hitmakers Kool & the Gang, it was ladies' night but the feeling wasn't so right. Sure, there were a few good bloggable moments, but there was no real Wednesday Night Fever going on. The overall so-so showing by the top 10 girls only confirmed my conviction that it'll be two males battling onstage at the Kodak Theater on finale night.

All right, let's get right to it. First up was judge (if not fan) favorite Carly Hennessmithson, further backing up my "primacy and recency effect" sociological theory from yesterday's top 10 males blog. (She sang last on '60s Night, and first on '70s Night. This was no luck-of-the-draw accident, peopel.) And man, though I've made no secret that Carly is not one of my faves, I have to give her credit for taking on a Heart song, "Crazy On You." Ann Wilson is arguably one of the greatest rock 'n' roll singers ever--not just the best rock frontwoman, but one of the best

In my boys-night recap from earlier today, I lamented the lack of Beatles songs during last week's '60s Night.

In fact, other than David Archuleta and Blake Lewis's performances of John Lennon's solo song "Imagine," Taylor Hicks' cover of (the George Harrison-penned) "Something," and a Sgt. Pepper's medley on last season's finale, Beatles songs of any kind have (for legal reasons) been conspicuously absent from Idol throughout all seven seasons.

Until now!

Yes, today on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM morning radio show, American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed that the entire 180-song Beatles catalog is finally available for use on the show...and when the top 12 hopefuls sing in just two weeks, they'll be warbling the words of Lennon & McCartney.

Very exciting news! But considering that the Beatles are arguably the greatest music-makers of all time, the season 7 finalists are up for a real challenge here. After all, people don't like to hear Beatles songs messed with. Mangle a classic

Well, American Idol marched a decade closer to the present this week, following up last week's '60s theme with a night of songs from the '70s. Now, I set my TiVo last night with much trepidation, because I knew an evening dedicated to the disco-fever decade of pet rocks, polyester, and platform shoes could easily become drowned in a thick, gooey pool of karaoke cheese. After all, how cool could the top 10 males really seem while belting out Barry Manilow schmaltz, Barry White bedroom ballads, or Barry Gibb disco? Really, only this season's class clown, Danny Noriega, would be able to get away with latter--and just barely.

As it turns out, many of my fears were unfounded, but some were definitely justified. Thankfully only a couple contestants came across as lounge singers straight out of a scene from The Love Boat, but very few of them truly captured the spirit of '76 in any 2008-relevant way.

First, there was easy-on-the-eyes Aussie Michael Johns, perhaps the cutest thing to emerge