He's right about all three!

I strongly agree, especially about Taylor Hicks. I read a story the other day about how Taylor might be the first AI winner not to crack the 1 million sales mark. Apparently Nana Smith in Boise is a lot quicker to dial and vote, but not so fast going to the store and buying a record. Or maybe she's just a cheap bitch. Either way, eat it Taylor and eat it Soul Patrol.

Go Simon! :D *listens to his lovely Daughtry record*

Kelly Clarkson has definitely sold more than 1 million albums...maybe Taylor is the first male winner whose album sales will reach the 1M mark?

@ #4: Ruben Studdard, 2nd season's male winner sold more than 2 million of his first album. Just FYI.

Taylor really sucks, and I'm so glad that people are finally comming to their senses about him.

I don't understand his point about JHud...

Rock Star....Regarding JHud, she's claiming that the show was a steppingstone for her Oscar-- like it was just one stop on her "road to fame." Simon's point is that the show is the only thing that made it possible for her to be where she is. Without American Idol, she never would have been discovered.

As for Taylor, travesty that he won last season. I agree 100% with Simon.

Hey poster#2,

why you hatin' on Boise?

regarding Hudson- isn't that exactly what a stepping stone is? Someone like Taylor Hicks appears to have used the show as the pinnacle, whereas Hudson, Clarkson, Carrie Underwood- those guys appear to have used it as the first step toward. for him to rip Hudson, and then go on to rip Taylor for not selling records, well that just seems counterinuitive to me. success.

msu11y28 (#4) - Ruben's first album sold around 1.7 million copies. Clay's first album sold 2.8 million in the US, 4 million worldwide. Daughtry's debut album is up to the 1.7 million mark and is designated as the fastest-selling debut rock album of all time. Taylor? He's sold 623,000 since December. He's a joke.

HalluxValgus (#9) - Great point.

As a fan of Taylor's during the last AI season, I have to say that his low selling numbers are due less to the fact that somehow everyone realized that he's not a good singer, and more to the fact that his album is very, VERY uneven.

Taylor brought a breath of fresh air to the show and got a lot of people to pay attention to the soul genre again. I don't think anyone changed their mind about Taylor's ability to sing well in this genre.

What did happen was that on Taylor's album only about a third or so of the songs clearly fit into the soul category and are pieces that have a chance to pass the test of time. The rest--the majority of the songs on the album--are quite forgetable pieces that show you that you cannot have ten different writers for ten different songs and expect to have a classic album on your hands. The atrocious single from the album, Dream Myself Awake, penned by Rob Thomas, is a case in point.

So even though I was and still am a fan of Taylor's, I couldn't bring myself to buy his album. I'd much rather purchase just the songs that I like from a place like iTunes. And I believe a lot of other Taylor fans find themselves in the same situation.

Cowell should be thanking the American public for

1. Letting him into the US on an entertainment VISA so he can live here

2. Thanking the US viewers for making him rich

What an arsehole.. The thanking should start with him, he is a guest in our country