Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Alejandro Aranda from American Idol Season 17

Alejandro Aranda, runner-up on American Idol Season 17, has retired the stage name Scarypoolparty from his pre-Idol days and released his first single in a year and a half. It’s called “Pieces” and the accompanying music video will drop on Friday. In a long address to fans, Alejandro expresses thanks to Idol and all the opportunities that follows but said that he found himself in “a terrible mental state personally.” He adds: “But now I am not hiding behind an artist name and I am more then ready to put out music cause I feel like I’m finally myself again. I still struggle a lot cause i’m a really flawed human, lol, but I am more grounded than ever before.”

Fritz Hager from American Idol Season 20

Fritz Hager, Top 5 in Season 20, dropped “Bad Friend” on Friday. It’s a song he wrote with Ilsey Juber about how relationships can ruin friendships. “When we wrote this song, we wanted to explore how confusing love can be at a young age when you don’t have the tools to communicate it,” Fritz said in a press released, adding the song is “a melancholic look into the past and a kind of apology to the people we hurt.” The song follows “Two Step” and “Caroline” as Fritz’s third single of 2023.

Michael J. Woodard of American Idol Season 16

Michael J. Woodard from American Idol Season, dropped a new single called “Face” on Friday. He wrote the song with Duwayne John Phinisley and released it on Katy Perry’s Unsub label. Michael said it’s “about the struggle of not being able to verbalize the way you feel about someone you love, yet the emotion is clearly expressed on your face. I wanted to capture the feeling of liking someone and just not being able to hide it. … I hope you love it, and it gives you all the feels.” There’s an accompanying music video, which you can check out below. “Face” follows “Trouble” as Michael’s second release of 2023.