The Fox TV show that started over a decade ago is back with new faces and new talent. The show originally started with Paul Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson as the judges. Yet, after season 8 there were new judges placed on the panel. Abdul was the first to leave with Cowell the following suit after season 9. Jackson stayed on the panel until the 12th season and afterward there were all new judges.
American Idol’s judge’s Panel has seen a plethora of musicians/artists such as Mariah Carey, Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and the late Donna Summer.
For the show’s upcoming season, Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Luke Bryan will be the new judges. The trio all come from different backgrounds within the music industry such as funk/soul, pop, and country music.
Lionel Richie who is a notable singer/songwriter, record producer and actor has been in the entertainment industry for almost 50 years. In 1968, he started out in a band called the Commodores. In 1982, he started his solo career and ultimately became a Grammy award-winning artist with the highest honor in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Richie has sold over 100 million records which have made him one of the world’s best selling artists of all time.
Katy Perry is singer/songwriter who initially pursued a career in gospel, but decided to pursue a pop career. In 2008, Perry rose to fame with the release of I Kissed a Girl and Hot n Cold. She has released four pop albums during her career. Like Richie, she is one of the best selling music artists of all time. Perry has also been awarded American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno award.
Luke Bryan is country singer/songwriter whose career initially stared in the mid-2000s. He has written songs for his longtime friends, Travis Tritt and Billy Currington. So far in his career, Bryan has been the recipient of the Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards. He has also sold over 7 million albums and 27 million singles worldwide.
It’ll be interesting to see how these three artists come together from their different backgrounds to work cohesively on the judges’ panel. I think that most of the people that watch American Idol are those that have been watching it from the very start. Which is probably why after the original hosts left there were multiples judges within a short time frame in an effort to keep things fresh. Their goal is to definitely keep their old viewers and gain some new ones as well. But, I don’t think that they considered who and what the viewers want.
