Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Before the live blogging starts for Idol’s final audition show for season nine, there’s a good deal of Idol news to catch up on.

* Carrie Underwood has released the video for her new single “Temporary Home.” It’s available exclusively on iTunes today and tomorrow. It debuts Thursday on CMT and GAC. Go here for details.

* We Are the Fallen, with Carly Smithson on lead vocals, has announced a kickoff concert March 23 in London. The group is also embarking on a tour as an opening act for Him. The tour includes stops in Philly and Baltimore. Get the details here; see ticket information in the Idols in the Area section to the right of this blog.

The group’s first single, “Bury Me Alive,” is now available, and the band says it’s a different version than the free download offered last summer. Speaking of free downloads, you can get an acoustic version of “Bury Me Alive” by going here. Hurry, it’s available for only a limited time.

* Tune in to Oprah Wednesday, and you’ll see Fantasia, who has a new reality show and plans to release a new album sometime this year. In addition to being interviewed, Fantasia will perform a new song on the show.

* Kelly Clarkson recently tweeted that she plans to release a new single in September and a new album by the end of the year. If you ask me, Kelly had enough potential hits to release a couple of more singles from “All I Ever Wanted.”

Whew, that’s a lot of Idol news. And tonight’s show hasn’t even started.

The show starts with a singer who can sing. Welcome to Hollywood, Mark Labriola, even if you did have a strange chilldhood, on the run with your mom from your dad for something like six years. Mark is a 28-year-old father who thought his dream was over, until his Idol audition, where he wowed the judges with a rendition of “Tempted.”

But the news isn’t so good for Mario Galvin, whose laugh was reminiscent of Tatiana Nicole.

Next up on tonight’s show, single mom Kimberly Kerbow, whose daughter just looked absolutely adorable proclaiming that her mother is the next American Idol. Kimberly is a 24-year-old college student from California, and she’s Hollywood bound after a performance of “The Way I Am.”

Now we meet the most talented singer so far from the Denver show, Danelle Hayes, who sounds great on “I’m the Only One.” Danielle, 24, is a singer in a cover band and a karaoke hostess who’s looking for a break. Oh, and she has a 3-year-old son.

OK, now we have Kara enticing a guy named Casey James to take his shirt off during an audition. “You got to see Bikini Girl,” she tells Simon. So, sounds like this guy got through on looks rather than talent. He’s a 27-year-old musician from Fort Worth who was in a motorcycle accident a few years back. He says doctors told him he’d never play guitar again.

Yet another good singer in Tori Kelly, a 16-year-old high school student from California. She’s going through even though Simon found her voice “annoying” and says she looks like “a human orange.”

My, my, we’ve seen mostly people who won golden tickets in the first half of tonight’s show. Here’s betting we pay the price in the second half of the show.

Told you. Here comes a singer/composer/football player whose 42nd top wish was to make it to Hollywood on Idol. Bye, bye, Austin.

And here comes the male Mary J. Blige who says his singing is a service to the community. Another unanimous no from the judges.

Next up, Nicci Nix, a 22-year-old musician from Florence, Italy, who’s “a funny little thing,” according to Simon. That squeaky voice is going to get incredibly annoying. And I didn’t think the singing was good at all, but she’s off to Hollywood. Is she a U.S. citizen? Earlier this season, someone got a golden ticket taken away because he wasn’t.

Wow, tonight’s episode is nearly over. And we get to meet Haeley Vaughn, who was born two months early and weighed 2 pounds when she was born. She also lost her dad when she was 10 and says she thinks she got a little of her voice from him.

She wants to be the first black pop/country singer and she’s trying … and I mean trying … to sing Carrie Underwood’s “Last Name.” Nice look. Nice personality. But I didn’t think her voice was very good at all.

So, we have 26 golden ticket winners from Denver.

And now, we end the auditions with Bikini Guy.

And a glimpse of last year’s Bikini Girl.

Check back later. I’ll try to round up more information on some of tonight’s golden ticket recipients.