Tidbits 1/31

• ABC is confirming today that Clay's Valentine's Day appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live will feature a musical performance -- "musical performances by Tenacious D on February 9 and Clay Aiken on February 14."
• Houston Chronicle - In an article, "American Idol's (highly debatable) All-Time Best performances", it says, "EW.com's list of ten best American Idol performances includes some expected highlights: Clay Aiken's Soltaire, Jennifer Hudson's Circle of Life, Kelly Clarkson's Stuff Like That There."
• ETonline - In "American Idol is Appointment TV", Randy says,

  I think the music does that," Randy points out. "The genres do that. You listen to music from the '50s and '60s that kids don't even know, but they can sit there and enjoy it with their parents, which is really, really cool. It's kind of the 'Rocky' story set to music, if you will. You're pulling for that underdog. You know CLAY AIKEN can change his appearance and win.

• Lycos50 - Clay moves down several spots to #13 this week.
• Musiqtone - send Clay some votes in this poll which asks " Which Idol do you love?"
  
• TV Grapewine - AI article... nice Clay mention - "Remember how geeky Clay Aiken looked when he first sang? Now he is all Hollywood slick and making a career for himself."
• Delco Times - AI article ... "I don't always agree with the voting audience about the "Idol" winner. The success of Clay Aiken, Diana de Garmo, Chris Daughtry and Jennifer Hudson show why appearing on the show is victory enough."
• Broadway World - Suzie McNeil, who sang with Clay on ATDW, will be starring in a new musical set to take stage in Toronto --

  In 2005, McNeil was the last woman standing on CBS television's reality series Rockstar: INXS and she is featured singing a duet on both INXS’s and "American Idol" finalist Clay Aiken’s latest CDs. Her debut CD "Broken & Beautiful" is being released in March 2007 and her single ‘Hung Up’ is now available on iTunes.

• So so mention in Seattle Weekly food/lifestyle article.
  
• WebProNews - UNICEF & Yahoo! teaming up for special awareness campaign spearheaded (more info about the campaign here) -

  On the charitable side, Yahoo teamed with Unicef for a ten-day celebrity-studded awareness building campaign. Through Yahoo Answers, celebrities from film, TV, music and sports will ask questions of Yahoo's users to build awareness of children's issues throughout the world.
  
  Actors Lucy Liu, Lawrence Fishburne, Alyssa Milano, Danny Glover, and Tea Leoni, musicians Clay Aiken and India Arie, NBA star Elton Brand, and celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson have been listed as celebrity participants for the program, which runs from today through February 9th.
  
  The opening question, "What can we do to get more Americans committed to supporting programs that help children?", comes from singer and Unicef Ambassador Clay Aiken.

• Ecorzaai - celebs pitch in in Yahoo/UNICEF promo.
  

• Clayigraphy - celebrating 4 years of Clay Aiken:

  I think the first actual competition song I watched him sing was "Grease" which I have to admit took me back a bit since I wasn't completely hooked at that point. But then a co-worker brought in a video tape from the night he sang "Solitaire" and even though she was a "Ruben" and hadn't made it back to her VCR in time to record the first few seconds of the "Cutie Patootie's" song... it was still enough to push me over the edge. So I guess in remembering back I'd have to say "Clay... You had me at 'Man'..." And never let there be any doubt about it... you still have me there.

• MeanSpeed (non Clay blogger) - remember the scientific analysis of ATDW posted by a cool music blog called MeanSpeed last week (see Tidbits 1/26)... they've just posted a new one for MOAM. I personally have no idea what all these numbers mean, but it's kind of cool... Here's a sample set of data for "The Way":

  Track #2
  song title=“The Way”
  composers=David Diegel, Enrique Iglesias, Kara E. DioGuardi, Steve Morales
  meanspeed=74.0 beats per minute
  meanemotion=grace
  meanspace=0.811 seconds per beat
  meanphase=1.23 beats per second
  meanpitch=315.73 hertz, 25 cents higher than D#4/Eb4=311.127 hertz, 75 cents lower than E4=329.628 hertz.