Tidbits 5/7

• OK! Magazine - Clay Aiken has no rumors to clear up:

  Believe everything you read about Clay Aiken. Go ahead, ask him yourself. The onetime American Idol runner-up and current Broadway star tells OK! he has no rumors to clear up — not even the one about his sexuality.
  
  “At this point everyone knows everything,” Clay tells OK! “I had a fan a few years ago say ‘I know everything about you except for what your favorite color is.’ In that case, I’m never telling anyone my favorite color. I’ve stuck to it for five years – no one knows. For the most part, people know quite a bit. After five years, people have figured out as much as there is to know.”
  

• Clay Aiken is back with a new album
• Canadian Press wire
• Las Vegas Review Journal
  
• Baltimore Sun -

  Clay Aiken has always seemed like the most bewildered of the " American Idol" graduates -- his insta-fame cut with a bit of what-just-happened? caution, his music a hit-or-miss split between what he wants and what he's supposed to want.
  
  Five years later, on his second full album of originals, "On My Way Here" (RCA/19), Aiken is starting to figure it out.
  
  He is at his best when he wraps his big voice around big ballads, usually ones with big messages attached. He maximizes the drama on "As Long as We're Here" to poignant effect, with booming phrases that would make Celine Dion proud, followed by vulnerable questioning that emo leading men would secretly admire. He undersells "Something About Us" like it was a classic Johnny Mathis ballad and fills "The Real Me" with a quavering uncertainty that makes it work.

• The Frisky -

  Clay Aiken’s fourth record also comes out today and perhaps he’ll follow its lead. In his single, The Real Me, he teases his fans with lyrics like, “Do I let it show, does anybody know?” The answer is YES!

• New York Post -

  ATTENTION all Claymates: The second-place finisher in the second season of "American Idol" is finally putting out his second album of original tunes.
  
  Between releasing his 2003 double-platinum debut, "Measure of a Man," and today's "On My Way Here," Clay Aiken released a Christmas album, a disc of cover songs and a Wal-Mart exclusive Christmas EP - and, as of Sunday, completed a 31/2-month stint in Broadway's "Spamalot."

• Idolator - It's Clay Day!

  From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews, even when the new release schedule isn't quite as exciting as it was the week before. Under consideration today is an album that Largehearted Boy has said the "mainstream media" is "fawning over": Clay Aiken's On My Way Here.

• American Idol mentions:
• Asheville Citizen Times - "Overall: David has a quality voice of a genre ala Clay Aiken. He will be successful and he will be around for at least another week. 9."