‘American Idol’ notes: Lee DeWyze, Nicki Minaj, Colton Dixon

We’re going to start this “American Idol” notes off with Lee DeWyze, since this is the news that we promised you first yesterday.

So what was the big announcement? As it turns out, Lee has joined Vanguard Records! Chris Isaak, Matt Nathanson, and John Fogerty are some of the artists on this group’s roster that you probably have heard of before, and stylistically it seems to be the right fit for Lee’s folk-rock sound that he has worked on over the past couple of years.

While there is no confirmed release date yet for a new album, Lee promised that both this and a new single are coming soon, and they have been hard at work for some time trying to put out the best product possible.

Nicki Minaj talks season 12 – In case you have not yet seen one of the million other videos of Nicki Minaj talking about her famous fights with Mariah Carey on the “Amreican Idol” season 12 set, this clip from “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” is for you. In it, the “Super Bass” rapper explains rather honestly why she and Mariah got into it, how she feels about her now, and why she is not looking forward to some of the live shows that begin in early March.

We know that Nicki is not everyone’s cup of tea, but we thus far find her to be both honest and a nice change of pace from the politically-correct judges from season 11 that was basically the critical version of auto-tune.

A Colton “sampler” – Despite the name sound like an appetizer, what we have below is the chance to hear snippets from all of the songs on Colton Dixon’s debut album “A Messenger.” His music has been faring well on the Contemporary Christian charts, and the more we hear of it, the more we really think that he sounds almost like a combination of Relient K, Switchfoot, 7-Foot Crutch, and maybe even a hint of Billy Joel when he gets back to his piano roots.

The album drops on January 29, and the audio comes to us via Yahoo! Music.

As always, be sure to read some of our other “American Idol” highlights!

Photo: Fox