Did anyone catch CMT’s Crossroads with Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood on Saturday?

Crossroads prides itself on its unusualy pairings, but this one might be one of the stangest. The only thing the two of those have in common is that they’ve both been on American Idol. But somehow it worked. The two of them had a good chemistry — moreso during the discussion portion of the show than the singing, but it was still fun to hear them sing together.

The highlight had to be Steven singing along with Carrie’s “Before He Cheats.” It was both bad and awesome. Check out the show preview after the jump and you can look for the full episode on repeat or OnDemand.

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American Idol might still be the No.1 show on TV, but the ratings continue to slip.

Wednesday’s Portland auditions episode had 18.19 million viewers and a 5.9 rating among adults 18-49. That’s down from last week and of course last year. Thursday’s show from St. Louis had 17.4 million total viewers, according to the Nielsen ratings system. That’s just about even with last week, but far less than last season.

For the third week in a row, American Idol was beaten Thursday in the important 18-49 age group by CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”

So what’s behind this season’s ratings? Music Editor for The Hollywood Reporter has an idea.

“Last year, they came out with such a bang,” said Shirley Halperin who also writes the Magazine’s ”Idol Worship” blog. “It was such a novelty to see Lopez and Tyler. They really upped their game in terms of celebrity quotient. This year feels kind of like the sophomore album. Everything seems a little ho-hum.”

Judge Randy Jackson want’s to point out an important factor.

“Idol’s in its 11th season, it’s still the number one show on television, not by the huge margins it was before,” Jackson told THR.

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Adam Lambert’s video for his single “Better Than I know Myself” has finally debuted and fans seem to be loving it.

“There’s no word to say except for PERFECT, BRILLIANT, OUTSTANDING!!!” a YouTube user said.

“This was such a brilliant video! I loved the cosy, tea drinking Adam,” another user said.

I must say, the overall video turned out much better than I though after watching the previerw for it. Adam is great at channeling anger and drama to make a good video. It’s very “well-acted.” And that’s a pretty sweet jacket he’s wearing.

What do you guys think of the video? Check it out after the jump.

Original content from American Idol 2012.

The American Idol 2012 auditions episodes wrapped Thursday night and even though I couldn’t be happier, I do have to say St. Louis showed us some pretty good talent.

Opening with a reminder that Carrie Underwood first auditioned in St. Louis in 2004, the night was filled with performers hoping to follow in her footsteps.

The Standouts

Johnny Keyser. What a great start to the night with this guy. He has an amazing tone, nice runs and a touch of soul. The judges loved him and Jennifer even said “You know you’re going to be a star?” Let’s hope so. He’s one of the best auditions I’ve seen this season. And on top of that, he’s got a great look and attitude.

Rachelle Lamb. Her story seems to be the theme of the season: good singer who got married and had children; held back by husband; husband has split and it’s time for her to chase her dream again. She’s been bottling up a lot of passion because it came out in her audition. She has a lot of great energy to match her nice tone and soft country twang.

Reis Kloeckener. This guy looks like a kid, but at 20, I guess he’s not. His Bieber hair annoyed me at first, but when he told his timely story of being bullied and then sang in the sweetest tone I changed my mind. I guess I approve. His voice doesn’t seem to have a lot of power, but there’s an emotion he has when he sings that makes it easy to connect to him.

Ethan Jones. These are the kinds of artists I like. They’re modest and sweet but can also really sing. There’s nothing worse than a singer who is too cocky. Confidence is great, cockiness is not.

Lauren Gray. The best for last? Perhaps. Actually, with Johnny going first in the episode, I’d like to say they saved the best for first and last. Lauren is a singer in a southern rock band with her dad and the moment she started singing it was clear that she needs to be performing on a much larger stage. Her voice was is so powerful and everything about her singing is effortless. She’s a natural.

By the end of the American Idol St. Louis auditions, they handed out 46 tickets to Hollywood. And those rounds start next week. Expect some great drama as some early favorites fall short and some stars emerge. If you can’t wait until Hollywood week is over to find out the Top 24, we can hook you up. Just check out our American Idol spoilers.

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American Idol 2012 makes its final stop for auditions tonight in St. Louis.

After last night’s decent auditions in Portland, Oregon, can St. Louis give us more of the same? We’ll have to see. I’m actually hoping the days of featuring bad singers aren’t completely over. I hope they realize next season how boring the audition episodes were without them.

One thing we will get tonight on Idol that we didn’t get last night is an exclusive sneak preview of Madonna’s new video for her song “Give Me All Your Luvin.”

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Original content from American Idol 2012.

The folks at Fox kind of sneaked a little change in on us. Tonight’s American Idol 2012 auditions episode in St. Louis is the final of the season and we’ve all realized that, but it you check back to the original Idol 2012 schedule you’ll see that wasn’t supposed to be the case originally.

Originally, there was one more audition episode scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 8. It would have apparently featured auditions from Rutherford, NJ, which were stopped after the producers’ round, according to multiple sources. Who wants to put money on the reason being because of a diva judge move?

At any rate, I couldn’t be happier. I’m ready for Hollywood Week. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this year’s American Idol auditions epsisodes just haven’t been cutting it.

Of course that leaves us with the question on whether or not this change will effect the start of the live episodes. It seems somewhere along the way we’ll get an extra day from Hollywood or Vegas … or some dreaded clip-type show. We’ll keep you posted.

Are you happy we get one less audition episode than first thought?

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American Idol’s trip to Portland ended up being one of the better audition episodes this season with a decent mixture of good, bad and clueless singers.

It’s still pretty strange to go 11 seasons prominently featuring the really ridiculous singers then suddenly stop doing that. I always thought I’d prefer audition rounds with all the bad singers. I realize now I was wrong. At least with the bad singers, there was some entertainment. I think we’re all ready for American Idol 2012 Hollywood week.

The Standouts

Brittany Zika. She looked and acted annoying, but she didn’t sound too bad. She had a gentle and sweet tone to her voice, but probably still too annoying to get very far in the contest. We’ll see how she does in Hollywood.

Ben Purdom. Ben, I think, is one of those contestants who actually think he can sing well. Those kinds aren’t that fun to make fun of because I end just feeling sorry for them. I mean, his version of “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga was so bad he stopped himself.

Jermaine Jones. The church singer-types always get the judges going bad always leave me wondering why. I just don’t get it. I realize he’s not a bad singer, but he seemed rough around the edges to me. I would’ve said no if I were a judge. But they said yes.

Britnee Kellogg. This mother of two put her dreams on hold for her husband and all he did to thank her was cheat on her. I think she’s probably already got the song to that story written in her head. She delivered a great audition with “You’re No Good.” She’s got the story, the look, the sound and the passion. Welcome to Hollywood.

Sam Gershaman. She didn’t have a bad voice but she’s a little bit crazy. I don’t think she’s necessarily heading in the wrong direction with singing, but she certainly isn’t going to be a pop star. She should definitely try musical theater.

David Weed. I seriously didn’t think this guy was that bad. I think like Sam, he could actually have a career (or nice pasttime) doing musical theater. He’s pretty animated and funny to watch. He could be a good character actor perhaps.

Romeo Diahn. A Liberian civil war, refugee, this guy kind of caught my attention. His story was interesting and so was his voice. There wasn’t a lot of power to it, but I’ve never heard a voice quite like that. I’m glad they put him through to Hollywood. I’d like to hear more of him.

Naomi Gillies. She took on Aerosmith’s “Crying” and delivered some soul. She had a nice Christina Aguilera vibe going.

Jessica Phillips. What a sad story she told. She’s had a lot of heartache in her life and it comes out in her singing. There was a passion there that few possess. She’s a great singer and I hope we get to hear more during Hollywood Week.

In the end, 45 golden tickets were handed out in Portland. We’ll find out next week how many of those make it past Hollywood Week.

Ryan Seacrest calls the Portland auditions ”an inspirational evening you won’t want to miss” in the promo (posted after the jump). And by that he means plenty of sob stories! Of course he also calls it ”A shocking night of auditions in the City of Roses.” So I guess we can be prepared to be shocked and sad. We’ll see.

And in case you didn’t know this, these auditions were filmed months ago and there have been plenty of spoiler reports on who has made it and who hasn’t. So, if you’re too impatient to wait, and you want to get ahead of the game, you can find out if your favorite auditioners have made it through Hollywood week by checking out our American Idol Spoilers.

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The video for American Idol alum Adam Lambert’s “Better Than I Know Myself” comes out in a couple days, but the singer has released a teaser to it.

It’s a video. Nothing special. Kind of like someone just standing around their studio apartment lip syncing to a song they recorded in a studio. Nothing epic, but it’ll work for fans, no?

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Lythgoe took to Twitter to extend his invitation.

“@BarackObama we loved your vocal performance so much we’d love to invite you on to #AmericanIdol this Season for a duet with Al Green,” Lythgoe wrote.

The Huffington Post suggests that duet could help Idol’s ratings since it’s helped the sales of that song. Apparently, since Obama sang the song, digital sales of “Let’s Stay Together” have risen an amazing 490 percent.

What do you think of this? Would you tune in to hear the President sing a duet with Al Green?

Original content from American Idol 2012.