In an interview with Deadline.com's Nikke Finke last week, Simon Cowell revealed that he wanted "X Factor U.K." judge Cheryl Cole for the judging panel on "The X Factor USA." And sure enough, since Simon almost always gets his way, it was officially announced today that Cheryl has landed the job.

"I'm thrilled for Cheryl. She is massively excited about this show, and has been fantastic to work with," Simon said today in a press release. "She is also a complete brat! Most importantly, this girl can spot talent."

"I'm so excited to be taking part in the American version of 'The X Factor,'" added the 27-year-old Cheryl. "I absolutely love it here in the U.K., and with the talent they have out in America, I'm sure we're going to find someone very special. I can't wait to get started."

I know I can't wait. As a longtime avid viewer of "The X Factor U.K." online, I've always enjoyed what Cheryl brings to the table. Any American who's watched the British version of the show already knows that

WATCH PART 1 OF DAVID'S INTERVIEW HERE

In the second instalmment of Reality Rocks' excellent two-part interview with Season 7 "American Idol" champ David Cook, he goes into further detail about his long-awaited new album, This Loud Morning (piano! sitars! orchestral arrangements! theremin! "cinematic moments"! writing credits on every song!), as well as the two-and-a-half-year wait for the follow-up to 2008's David Cook.

"I took the time to get this album right," he says. "It would've been really easy to get a bunch of writers to submit songs and have another album out in four months and be done, but I didn't want to do that because I felt it shortchanged not only myself but my fans. They've been extremely patient, but I think they've been really understanding of why....Now June 28th [the album's release date] can't come soon enough!"

But more importantly, David addresses media-perpetrated fallacies that he's not actually that successful. Despite selling 1.4 million albums and more

Almost exactly a week after winning the third season of "RuPaul's Drag Race," the fabulously gender-bending Raja has released her debut single, "Diamond Crowned Queen." No, it's not the punk-rock version of "Superstar" that she mimed along to on the "RuPaul-A-Palooza" episode of "Drag Race," but much like the Logo Network reality show itself, the song is totally over-the-top, gleefully trashy, and BSFW (barely safe for work).

The track, which brings to mind synthy '70s sleazefests like "Warm Leatherette," '80s industrial, and mid-'90s house music hits, is sure to be as controversial and polarizing as Raja herself. It features (penciled-)eyebrow-raising couplets about licking on triggers and feasting on sex for dinner, not to mention a lot of groaning straight out of a Berlin or Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder remix. A 12-inch remix. Pun intended.

As for Raja's singing voice? Well, she does a lot more moaning and groaning than actual singing--let's leave the real vocal acrobatics to Raja's

WATCH PART 2 OF DAVID'S INTERVIEW

Season 7 "American Idol" winner David Cook tends to keep a much lower profile than many pop stars--the self-described homebody freely admits, "I'm not the guy who's going to go clubbing four nights a week"--and it's been a whole two and half years since the release of his first post-"Idol" album and major-label debut, David Cook. This has perhaps created the erroneous public perception that he's gone into early retirement or isn't so successful these days. But nothing could be farther from the truth. In addition to playing hundreds of concerts, the man has sold more than 1.4 million albums and 2 million single downloads, and has been hard at work with superstar producer Matt Serletic on his follow-up, This Loud Morning, which finally comes out in June.

Still, David concedes that he's been out of the game for just a little bit. "I think I had this image of this album maybe taking six months...but then it became very apparent that it was going to be a