Add Jordin Sparks to the list of Idols who plan to release new albums this year.
Jordin played parts of four songs that might appear on the album on the JohnJay and Rich radio show in Phoenix on Friday.
She said her sophomore album might be out as soon as September, but certainly sometime in 2009.
One of the songs is “Faith,” which she helped write earlier this year because, in her words, “people just need that one encouraging word” these days with everyone struggling because of the downturn in the economy. She sang the song during one of the inaugural balls earlier this year.
Here’s the video from that performance.
Jordin’s announcement provides a perfect excuse to get back to my Idol flashbacks. Earlier blogs featured the winners and runners-up in Idol’s first five seasons. You can find them by clicking on the contestant’s name in the categories section to the right of this blog.
By the time Jordin auditioned for Idol, she was already a veteran of singing competitons and had taken part in the TV show “America’s Most Talented Kids.”
But she wasn’t considered a frontrunner when the Idol finals started in 2007. That’s partly because of her age; she was just 17 at the time. And that’s partly because the competition featured two extremely talented singers in Melinda Doolittle and LaKisha Jones.
In fact, it wasn’t until her ninth Idol performance, when she sang Martina McBride’s “Broken Wing” — a country song of all things — that Simon Cowell said he could see her as the winner of American Idol.
But LaKisha wound up finishing fourth, and Melinda was somewhat shockingly voted off the following week, leaving Jordin to square off against Blake Lewis in the finale.
Jordin clearly outsang Blake that night. Of course, it helped that Idol had a songwriting competition to determine which single the winner would record that year, and the schmaltzy pop ballad (”This is My Now”) fell right into Jordin’s wheelhouse and well outside Blake’s comfort zone.
Anyway, Jordin became Idol’s youngest winner ever and one of the few winners who never finished in the bottom three.
And then she followed the footsteps of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood and recorded a smash hit album on her very first attempt.
Her self-titled debut album went platinum and yielded four top 20 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100, including the aforementioned “This is My Now” and two even bigger hits, “Tattoo” and “No Air,” the latter a Grammy-nominated duet with Chris Brown.
Idol welcomed Jordin back to the show last season to perform “No Air” live. Then she stood center stage receiving one plaque after another for her music chart success.
Judging from the song clips played on the radio Friday, she’ll very likely avoid the dreaded sophomore slump with her second album.
Here’s a look back at Jordin’s days on Idol.
Jordin makes Simon a believer with “Broken Wing.”
Jordin sings “She Works Hard for the Money” and tells us a Hanson tune is her favorite of all time.
Jordin sings “To Love Somebody” and tells us what she learned about herself during her Idol run.
Jordin tearfully sings “This is My Now,” the song that would become her first hit.
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