Idol Chatter & Voice Views

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Elliott Yamin’s second album, “Fight for Love” hits stores on Tuesday.

The first single, also “Fight for Love,” was released back in March. You can listen to it on Elliott’s MySpace page.

Elliott’s self-titled debut album was a smash success for an indpendent release, going gold and peaking at number two on the Billboard album chart.

The single “Wait for You” hit number four on Billboard’s adult contemporary chart. So far, “Fight for Love” has been fighting for any sort of footing on the charts.

It appears as though the base album will include 12 tracks, with bonus tracks available depending on how you buy it. Amazon .com has a track listings where you can also listen to samples of the songs.

And here’s a link to Elliott’s latest blog about the upcoming album.

If you don’t recall, Elliott was the third-place finisher on season five of Idol. That was the year Taylor Hicks walked away with the Idol crown.

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Just when you thought there couldn’t be another music awards show, here come the 2009 CMT Music Awards.

Among the nominees are two of everyone’s favorite country cuties, Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler.

The awards show isn’t until June 16 in Nashville, but voting to narrow the field of nominees is under way and will continue through May 19.

For more information, follow this link.

Carrie is nominated for Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for “Just a Dream.” Kellie is nominated for Female Video of the Year for “Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful.”

At last year’s show, Kellie’s video for “I Wonder,” about her estranged mom, picked up three awards, including CMT Music Awards Performance of the Year.

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While we’re on the topic of country music, Josh Gracin has posted a new song on his MySpace page.

Josh gained attention as the U.S. Marine who finished fourth in the second season of American Idol.

That propelled him to a highly successful self-titled debut album that peaked at number two on the country charts and yielded three top 10 singles on the country Billboard chart. One of the songs, “Nothin’ to Lose,” hit number one.

Album number two, “We Weren’t Crazy,” was released in 2008 and wasn’t quite as successful. It peaked at number four on the Billboard country album chart, but yielded only one top 10 single, the title track.

The new song is “Enough,” one Josh wrote. It’s his first project since being dropped by Lyric Street Records.

Josh will be appearing locally on May 17, performing shows at 4 and 6 p.m. at the Hersheypark Amphitheater.

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With album number two going nowhere fast, Taylor Hicks has released a country mix of “Seven Mile Breakdown.”

The tune, which he performed on Idol last week, is now available for download on iTunes. You can hear it free on his MySpace page.

Taylor released his second post-Idol album, “The Distance,” back in March. It cracked the Billboard Hot Albums top 100 for two weeks, then disappeared.

But he might be a chart bounce from the Idol appearance.

Taylor has also blogged about his Idol visit on MySpace.

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And we’ll close with a bit of good news to warm your heart.

Season three Idol contestant Jasmine Trias recently recorded a song to fulfill the wish of an 8-year-old girl in Hawaii who is suffering from acute myeloctic leukemia.

The youngster’s wish was to have a song she had written recorded by a female singer. Make-A-Wish Hawaii ambassador Henry Kapono put the girl’s words to music, then asked Jasmine to record the song.

Hawaii Pacific Entertainment coordinated the project. Here’s a link to a story about it.