‘American Idol’ notes: Adam Lambert (on ‘Wendy Williams’), Kris Allen, Tim Urban

There are all sorts of interesting stories breaking across the “American Idol” world at the moment, and this is without even mentioning the fact that season 12 is currently getting set to shoot in California.

We’ll kick things off here with Adam Lambert, who made his first-ever appearance on “The Wendy Williams Show” Monday to talk about anything and everything related to show. He refrained from giving a very harsh critique of the drama currently going on between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj, but he did make it very clear that he felt as though “American Idol” is much better suited as a show when the contestants, and not the judges, are the focus of everything. (This is a point we very much agree with.) He also talked about whether or not he wants to be married, some highlights from the past few years, and even greeted one of the most excited young fans out there.

Introducing Kris Allen’s new EP – Adam had some nice things to say about Kris Allen during the “Wendy Williams” chat, and Kris has a fantastic new collection of holiday tunes that is available on iTunes at this very moment. The five-song set contains covers of many a classic Christmas carol, and all of them are done in Allen’s signature laid-back and acoustic style.

Check out the track listing below:

1. O Holy Night

2. Holly Jolly Christmas

3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

4. The Christmas Song

5. White Christmas

We also still very much enjoy the cheeky humor of the album cover here, as it makes us wonder whether or not Kris is going to end up hitching a ride on Santa’s sleigh.

Tim Urban talks Taylor Swift video – We posted a viral video in the making over the weekend that starred the season 9 star singing a breakup tune for Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, and now he is opening up about just how quickly the song has gained momentum online.

You can watch the full performance of the song here, and Urban explains to The Hollywood Reporter that his intentions in making the track were simply to just be funny:

“I had no idea it would get that kind of reaction … The thing is, I didn’t want to be mean to either one of them. It was a joke. It does sound like something she would sing.”