‘American Idol’ notes: Jessica Sanchez, Phillip Phillips, Casey Abrams

Friday is here, and for this last edition of “American Idol” notes before the weekend, we are going to spend a good bit of time here talking about airplay in the context of a few artists who are experiencing some various degrees of success. Then, we’ll close things off with a new video interview with Jessica Sanchez.

Airplay chatter – First and foremost, major congratulations are in order for Phillip Phillips. After months of promotion and major thanks to the Olympics this summer, “Home” has made it all the way to #5 on the Hot AC chart. There aren’t many contestants on the show to reach this sort of peak before with any of their songs, with some of the top ones off the top of our head being Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, and Adam Lambert. There is still hope that he could rise even further, but a #1 spot is still something that could be pretty hard to reach.

When it comes to some other artists, you also have to give some applause to Casey Abrams, who is nearing a debut on the top 40 of this chart with “Get Out.” Want to help him out? Go and request the song! Personally we think it’d be really amazing that a song as good as this manages to crack the top 40 with as little promotion as it has had.

For those of you wondering about Lambert’s “Trespassing,” it has yet to crack the top 50 of this chart. Honestly, we’re not quite sure how it will do. It’s a good song without a doubt, but it’s also a sort of musical style that you don’t hear much of on the radio anymore. We know that there are some people out there saying that they would have rather seen “Cuckoo” or “Underneath” released as a single, but we’r enot really going to question people who know how to do their jobs better than a television writer does.

Jessica Sanchez speaks out – Finally, we turn to a rather candid interview Sanchez gave on the official 19 Entertainment YouTube page. What we like about this chat in particular is that it also includes her mother in on the fun, and gives us some insight as to what it is like being a parent to someone experiencing so much fame so quickly.