Carly Smithson - American Idol 7 - Top 24 Party

Carly Smithson at the American Idol 7 Top 24 Party

Carly Smithson is ready for her close-up! The so-called "pimpage" of Carly Smithson over the past few weeks is unprecedented in American Idol history. It all started 2 years ago during the advance buzz for Season 5: Simon Cowell mentioned that the only person he remembered among ALL who auditioned that year was an "Irish Girl" who auditioned in Las Vegas:

"I think she sang a Chaka Khan song and afterwards I said 'I think we may have found someone as good as ('Idol' winner) Kelly Clarkson.'"

But after heaping all that praise on the Vegas "Irish girl," Simon Cowell told The Post he forgot her name.

When the "Irish Girl" never materialized, American Idol fans were puzzled at who this Kelly Clarkson 2.0 was and wondered what could have been.

At any rate, now that the "Irish Girl" has come back, all that hype from 2 years ago has returned. And American Idol has rolled out the red carpet. Carly Smithson was a featured contestant for the San Diego auditions, and during Hollywood Week, aside from showing her sing twice, Carly Smithson's face was cut into the filler footage relentlessly. By comparison, the audience was never shown the background stories or the singing voice of Garret Haley, Jason Casto, Luke Menard and Jason Yeager.

However, via a simple search on the Internet, it turns out that Carly Smithson is not as unknown as we were led to believe. Carly Smithson had signed with a major label Vivendi Unversal SA's MCA Records when she was 18, and released a CD and music video in 2001 after working on it for 2 years. MCA spent $2.2 million on Carly Smithson, but the CD failed -- it sold 378 copies. This failure was so significant it was featured by the Wall Street Journal. Carly Smithson is eligible to join American Idol because she is a U.S. resident and she is not under contract. However, the size of her previous contract is bothering some American Idol purists. The $2.2 million invested in Carly Smithson in the past is almost as much as what the winner of American Idol 7 will be given this year.

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Good news! Carly Smithson's debut album is available now!
Carly Smithson -- Ultimate HighImage: (on Amazon)
Carly Smithson -- Ultimate High (on iTunes)
I'm Gonna Blow Your Mind (on iTunes)