AIKEN NEWS NETWORK MAY 22

[clayMaine-iac]

The 10 Greatest 'American Idol' Contestants Of All Time

10. Clay Aiken
He started out as the nerdy kid with the wire specs, got cut in the round of 32, came back as a wild card, got a makeover, became an unlikely heartthrob and rode a powerful set of pipes — and the whole "geek to chic" thing — all the way to the finals of season two, where he lost a nail-biter to Ruben Studdard. But he didn't let that stop him: Post-"Idol," he's sold a ton of albums (his debut, Measure of a Man, bowed at #1, selling a staggering 613,000 copies in its first week), starred in Broadway plays, became a pop-culture touchstone, proved that he has a rather deft touch for comedy and, oh, came out of the closet. Not too shabby.

MTV.COM

[clayMaine-iac]

'American Idol' Runners-Up Set Shaky Precedent For Adam Lambert
Will Adam's career be more like Justin Guarini's or Clay Aiken's?

Clay Aiken, Season Two: The flame-haired crooner and his coterie of devoted Claymates are easy to mock, but let's give Aiken some credit. Four top-five Billboard album hits. Two platinum-selling albums. A memoir on the New York Times best-sellers list. Still, the now openly gay father might be a little too full of himself at this point: Did we really need The Very Best of Clay Aiken six years after his first release? Apparently not, as the disc stalled at #173 on the Billboard chart. Then again, he did have a brilliant cameo on the season finale of "30 Rock" last week.

Success score: 4 out of 5 "Idol" stars

MTV.COM

[clayMaine-iac]

Before It Gets Old: '30 Rock' Benefit Song
Tuesday, May. 19 2009 @ 7:10PM
By Albert Ching in TV, before it gets old
So many guest stars! It's sad to see another season of the totally outrageously hilariously awesome 30 Rock end, especially given today's totally outrageously completely lame news that it once again won't start until midseason next year. Blerg indeed.

But savor the good times with this video, from last week's season finale, featuring Clay Aiken sharing the mic with Elvis Costello, a surprisingly relevant "We Are the World" parody, a conspicuously absent MCA, and a bunch of people--like Steve Earle and Rachael Yamagata--that were never identified during the episode and thus a lot of people probably didn't recognize. Sad!

To see the video:

OCWEEKLYBLOG

[clayMaine-iac]

Here is a look back at Clay's Final performances on AI2:

CLAYDREAMBELIEVERS

[Carolina Clay]

New CAROLINA ON MY MIND blog:

The AI8 results show and its aftershocks brought back memories of the AI2 showdown, as well as the buzz Clay created when he appeared on the AI5 finale.

Featured are a montage by Aspiegirl and graphics by cindilu2, AmazingCA, Sally, Clayquebec1, and Claystruck.

Have a great weekend, CM!   

Caro