Quenching Karma v.2: You're the best around, nothing's gonna ever keep you down

Idols shows. Winning this guarantees a recording contract as well as the title of whatever show competition. Idol show involve "audience participation" where people vote for who they want to win the competition and possibly buy their music (or download by other means) and see them perform live. Yet when it comes out to the voting and whoever wins the competition there is always some disappointments.

Though I'm not a big fan of the show American Idol I decided to what whatever I can pick up of the 10th season because of this guy and this performance:

James Durbin. I haven't seen all of the performances and when I got back home and have access to cable most of the cast had been voted off so unless there was another rocker on the show this seasons I'll say it here and call him the rocker of this season. He was recently voted off on Thursday (I found out through the promos since I missed the results show that night) which makes me question who do people like to win this competition?

Season 1: Kelly Clarkson -- Pop
Season 2: Ruben Studdard -- R&B
Season 3: Fantasia Barrino -- R&B
Season 4: Carrie Underwood -- Country
Season 5: Taylor Hicks -- Blues/Soul
Season 6: Jordin Sparks -- Pop/R&B
Season 7: David Cook -- Rock
Season 8: Kris Allen -- Pop-Rock/Contemporary Christian
Season 9: Lee DeWyze -- Pop-Rock

Okay, so a rocker has been the winner of American Idol but the majority seems to be pop oriented or whatever qualifies as "top 40". But there are other competitors on the show who didn't win the title have as much as or greater success as the winner of the program. I'm guessing anyone who reads this is familiar with Jennifer Hudson who not only is a singer but also won a bunch of acting awards too. Rockers Constantine Maroulis and Chris Daughtry didn't win the title but found success in Broadway and forming a rock band respectively.

So long story short: There may not be a metal-oriented idol on American Idol, but even if your favourite top 10 or top 12 contestant doesn't win, they still go on the tour and are featured on the compilation CD for the season. Even if your favourite contestant didn't make the top whatever for the season who knows, they might appear again on the same reality show or audition for a different reality show. All in all they do get exposure.

Another thing that happened over the weekend was the Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf. As for how a Canadian knows about something like this and is able to watch it, well I've been watching the shows live since last year on their website and youtube clips of songs from the past (Oprah briefly mentioned this on her show by showcasing a live performance of the German entry for 2009). Basically it's like the idols shows but different as each European country (with a few exceptions) has an artist or a group represent them in the competition plus an original song. The winner of this competition gets crowned the winner as well as hosting the contest for the next year.

Anyways the winner for this year is Azerbaijan. Their entry "Running Scared":

it wasn't one of my favourite out of the songs presented but it's pretty.

Some of favourite songs from the competition (there's just too many to list):