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'American Idol': The singers 'are now going to stay within their genre'
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Face it: While Jimmy Iovine as the new in-house "American Idol" mentor is news, learning that Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are joining Randy Jackson at the judges tables was pretty anticlimactic.Good thing returning producer Nigel Lythgoe has a couple of other tricks up his sleeve, including that the singers are no longer going to be made to sing all different genres.
Changes to the format:
Nigel Lythgoe: "They are now going to stay with their genre, consequently the styles of music are going to be more decades rather than individual artist's music. I think that is important to develop what they are good at."
Nigel Lythgoe (cont.): "We've been a bit of a karaoke show purely because we redo songs that people already know. We've got a whole new set of rules that are going to come in, we're not just going to copy the tracks that have been there before."
Jimmy Iovine: "We're going to try every week to bring the artist along. We're looking for originality. We're not looking for someone who sings like Whitney Houston. We're looking for someone who's influenced by Whitney Houston, but brings their own stuff ... Every week, they can't just be told 'sing better.' Someone has to work with them every week on performance, on style. I think you're going to see great improvement every week on the show."
Lythgoe: "What this does, Season 10, with having these icons here, is we're no longer protecting a brand. Once something works, you don't mess around with it too much. We're now given the opportunity of recreating the magic we started with. I think those middle rounds, we're looking at finding other ways of doing that so we actually present to America the best singers.
On who is the heir to Simon as the toughest judge:
Randy Jackson: "I don't know if there will be. I think we will all have our moments of toughness and nurturing and sweetness and everything."
Nigel Lythgoe: "It isn't about role-playing, it's about being yourself. We're hoping everyone's going to be honest and remain in their characters."
Jennifer Lopez: "I will give them tough love, but I don't think I will ever, as an artist, I could never be cruel to another artist. I think there's definitely better ways to say things and still get your point across. I've mentored on the show before, I think people have seen that and kind of can feel how I'll be."
On the process of becoming a judge:
Steven Tyler: "It's a bit of a dream come true. I was on tour and this was thrown at me and I looked on it as a great opportunity and then when I found out who was on board, I threw down right away. Right away. And as far as tough love and loving people and we're going to for sure be sending some people home with broken hearts, but with all we've been through in our careers, we live vicariously through the young talent out there. It's going to be hard, but it's also going to be fun. They're stepping up to the plate and so are we."
On the rumors of "diva demands":
Jennifer Lopez: "I'm kind of used to it, after as many years as I've been in this business, I'm used to that kind of stuff. I'm used to speculation. I was calming the FOX people down, I was like, 'It'll be gone tomorrow.' The truth always shows itself in who you are, so I wasn't really worried about it, to be honest. I was just looking forward to getting started."
Watch our video clip below of the press conference, the new judges talk about their chemistry as a panel.
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Randy Jackson wouldn't know tough if it hit him in the face.
Nobody has ever had a multifaceted career more successful than Lopez.
This is the Mary Tyler Moore curse--The wrong people are fired. Randy Jackson is the Ted Baxter of 2010!! He should have been gone long ago!! (Good thing Kara's gone too!!)
JLo an ICON? LOLOLOL No way in he** will she ever be an icon. Tyler, yes. Lopez, no way.
I have a feeling this will work out, new judges were going to come sooner or latter. I think this show will be around 20 years from now, the singers are who the viewers really want to see, the judges will come and go.
No surprises here, we knew these were the judges we were getting before this announcement today. But the GOOD news is that the judge panel is returning to just THREE judges. This makes me very happy. 4 was just too many, took up too much time and the judges didn't get enough time each to speak. Let's hope it stays this way.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how Steven Tyler does, what he says and how he treats the contestants.
Umm Jennifer Lopez IS A ICON, douche...
Yeah, no kidding... Sanchez calls her 'JLo' and then says she's not an icon. Contradictory much?
Most words out of Randy I've heard in a long time. Tyler a Rock Star of merit and Jlo a pop star, both are credible. Read somewhere people calling this the Titanic, but think we should wait and see the talent. So many changes, could help the contestants. Love Tyler, he can be profound in a strange way. Should be fun. Who's the guy at the end of the table. Started to talk and was shut down.