Taylor Hicks and Other Idols Winners and Contestants Celebrate Opening of AI Exhibit in Orlando

Taylor Hicks joined 6 other American Idol winners Thursday, February 12 to help celebrate the grand opening of the new "American Idol Experience" exhibit at Disney World in Orlando, Fl. This was the first time all 7 winners graced a stage together, and didn't Taylor look so dapper? So handsome? So classy? So... so... uh, well you get the picture! Oh yea, can you believe he and Simon Fuller had their picture taken together? Ah, to be a fly on the wall... And you'll notice one bald ugly guy (Daughtry, cough, belch) had the good sense to stay away - why ruin a perfectly good day, right? Anyway, below are some pictures from the event (click to enlarge)!

Paula Abdul on Taylor Hicks and AI Marketing

An article in the LA Times recently quoted Paula Abdul:

Is there something we can learn from Taylor Hicks' huge popularity on American Idol and subsequent lack of sales successes?

"Well you know, it doesn't, I would say this. Nothing takes away from the talent that these kids have. The talent doesn't go away. It's sometimes mishandled and sometimes misguided. And there are very specific reasons why people like Kelly Clarkson sell a lot of albums, and Carrie Underwood and you have the unbelievable talent of Fantasia Barrino and Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks, that don't get to have the same amount of sales…. However I do believe that maybe the album was not… filled with the right materials that suited them. I think that you have to take the right time and the right producer and the right rollout and the right support. It's not just based on they're not talented--there's a lot of factors that go into it that people fail to realize. The right team, the right marketing strategy. That is 90% of it. You have the talent: the talent is now a given. It's the other factors that go into it that predicate the success. Not predicate: but really, that's the success. If you don't have the right strategy, the right production, the right song material. It's all of that that goes into it. It's not to say their albums were bad at all, quote honestly I found good tracks on every single Idols' albums. It's who picks what and who allows them to shine true. A lot of times they don't have a lot of faith in the artistic direction. The second go around you can impart your vision. That's why the call it the sophomore slump. For these kids it's already the sophomore slump when they put their first album out, because they're being compared with being the winner! "

Okay, I'll give Paula a few brownie points for actually being honest for a change about the failed marketing and distribution for Taylor and his album - something both Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell cowardly didn't do. Randy was quoted in the NY Post as saying: "Once you graduate high school you can't blame the high school," Jackson tells AOL Television. "The truth really is [that] it's up to them to make amazing records. If they don't make amazing records... you know, the business kinda catches up with them."

Randy is just a mouthpiece for the PTB - selling his soul - covering his ass - refusing to speak the truth about the failed promotion for Taylor. He knows that Clive fucked up Taylor's album - forcing him to record music that clearly wasn't his style or strength - for sticking him with a producer who had no clue how to produce it (Matt Serletic) and most importantly, insufficiently promoting and pushing singles to radio, failing to support the music with videos, failing in every fucking way to do what was needed for this album to do even better than it did. And even without any support, Taylor STILL managed to push over 832,000 CDs off the shelves worldwide. In other words, they failed, not Taylor. There is NO lack of talent here, just a failed attempt by BMG/JRecords/Clive Davis.

Could it be that Taylor will ultimately win in the long run? Now that he is an independent agent, he can now take the next album in the direction he wants and hire a producer that is in tune with his natural vocal & instrumental talent. Most of all, Taylor will be in CONTROL of his own destiny. With the experience of producing 2 albums prior to American Idol coupled with more resources, musical freedom and access to a pool of talented collaborators, the possibilities for Taylor are endless - and that is exciting to me.

Paula, as ditsy as she is, makes a whole lot more sense in this article than the rest of the fatcats. And Simon, well, don't even get me started on that crass corporate pig.