Is Tom Petty current enough? Actually I think he’s pretty hot when he’s wearing the top hat.
Yep.
First of all, Clay hasn’t really had any hits. However, it could be argued that Kelly Clarkson is not conventionally attractive.
WRT the question about Jennifer Hudson, in season 2, there were still 4 semifinal “heats” where the top two advanced. She wasn’t even in the top 3 in her group of 8 by audience vote. The judges decided to bring her back for a Wildcard round. Again, the audience didn’t vote for her. Each judge was then allowed to select a pick for the top 12 and Randy chose Hudson. That’s why I hate when people say that the Idol judges were so hard on her. They not only chose her for the semifinals, but gave her 2 additional chances after America didn’t vote for her.
We must define hits differently. As of this article from 11-2006 he’d sold more than 4 million CDs, 1.3 million CD singles, and 328,000 downloads. Since then the numbers would have increased significantly, but he’s still second only to Kelly in total sales.
The 60’s & 70’s were more tolerant of regular looking people. In addition to Elton John, you had Carole King, Barry White, James Taylor, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, etc.
Back in the day, James Taylor was hot.
I think what he’s saying is that the big stars don’t show up because they are dying to be mentors to a bunch of unknowns, or because they want to use their star power to lend the show credibility in the music world, they show up because it puts them in front of 25 millions pairs of eyeballs. He also seems to be implying that they don’t gun for particular stars, they go for whoever offers to come, and that particular week, they got Peter Noone and Lulu.
Think of it this way: there’s a level of stardom below which the exposure makes it worth appearing on the same stage as Sanjaya, and a level above that. I think Simon’s saying Idol gets the ones who are in the below group, which includes a lot of has-beens. So they look at who’s biting for little or no money, see they’ve got Lulu and Peter Noone, and say, “OK, let’s have a British Invasion week, and get them both out of the way, then.”
Hey, it explains Tony Bennett.
Sure ,the highest rated program on TV has trouble getting peolpe of consequence. I think not.
Touche 
I think there are celebrities who don’t need Idol to get the attention of a goodly number of people, and who might think twice about what benefit there is to appearing on a show that says Haley and Sanjaya are better singers than thousands of other people, yeah.
Are you going to argue that Peter Noone, Lulu, and Tony Bennett are among those people?
Actually, I quite liked the way he did that song. I’m not familiar with the original and the way it ‘should’ have sounded, but coming to it cold, I liked it a lot. In fact it’s been my earworm for a couple days.
Nobody could say Tom Waits or Bob Dylan can actually sing (add Leonard Cohen to that) but they have an appeal that makes people want to listen to them. Could be that Sanjaya is tapping into that kind of appeal. Or it could just be that none of the other Idol contenders are cute enough for the tween girls to glom onto.
As for Clay, that was a bad photo but he’s got a million-kilowatt smile and a lot of charm (at least on camera). And he has a very nice voice. I judge Idol candidates by if I like them with my eyes closed. I don’t think looks have any place in whether a person should be a singing star. An awful lot of people who have had dozens of hits wouldn’t have made it if they had to pass the looks test. It’s just since the video age that people have wanted their stars to be eye-candy as well as ear-candy.
Yeah, but he forgot the words and THAT’S JUST NOT OK AT THIS STAGE OF THE GAME, DAWG.