4.28.11 Adam News & Info

By the way did anyone of you listen to Juneau and Xena's interview with Lee and Scarlett Cherry? Interesting tidbit from Lee is that Jimmy Iovine was hanging around during the last Zodiac show and asked Lee "WOW who's that kid with the pompadour". Lee told him "If you're interested you better snap him up fast as he's going on Idol. Jimmy didn't act on it apparently so it's his loss. You know I ran across a few mentions in the U2 communities of Jimmy and also U2's tour designer noticing Adam. I kind of wonder if watching him on Idol might be what prompted UMG to lobby for the Idol deal. They might have seen how Adam really showed the usefulness of Idol as a platform. From what I've seen so far I don't think Iovine particularly cares who wins the show. I think he'll sign whoever he thinks build a decent fanbase. He knows what a passionate fanbase can do for an artist and I think Adam showed that you could build a fanbase that draws from outside Idol if you have enough buzz. I also think that the change in record companies might also be why the social media restrictions were changed. It seems to me that Sony had a kind of hands off policy where they didn't really involve themselves in the show itself and just dealt with signing the acts they wanted when it was done, but obviously UMG's strategy is completely different in that they are hands on now with these kids and this is more like the entire cast is basically in artist development mode. I think we've already seen a much looser attitude towards letting the booted contestants start to capitalize on their Idol fame in ways that were definitely not allowed in the past.