‘American Idol’ notes: Jessica Sanchez, Crystal Bowersox, Keith Urban

We’re not even going to both burying the lead for this Monday edition of “American Idol” notes: we’ve just seen the album cover for the now-titled “Me, You, & the Music” from Jessica Sanchez, and it’s pretty fantastic.

The first thing that is worth noting here is that this album is mature, but at the same time appropriate for fans who are the same age as she is. There’s plenty of color, some nice little tricks with different photo hues, and her face is most importantly front and center. We also like that she, just as Phillip Phillips did, opted to go far a specific album title rather than something simply bearing her name. The only season 10 star to go with a self-titled release was Casey Abrams, and it hasn’t really sold in the hundreds of thousands despite being a pretty cool disc. (It’s just harder to get people excited about things when it is just your voice.)

This album will arrive in stores on May 7, and hopefully we’ll have a few more details to share about it before we get to this date.

Crystal’s music video – For those of you who are Crystal Bowersox fans (which we hope is all of you), check out her new video for “Dead Weight,” the first single off of her upcoming album. We love the folksy flavor of both the track and the video, which depicts what has to be the closest thing this decade will ever have to a cozy camping trip without a care in the world. Now, we just have to start pleading Nigel Lythgoe to let Crystal come on the show and perform this. (We know that season 9 wasn’t his, but can it still have some love?)

 

Keith says… Finally, let’s turn to Keith Urban continuing to have a good opinion even after the live show last week is over. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, we have to agree with some of the people that he feels are missing from the competition now: Breanna Steer, Elijah Liu (who was the surprise of last week), and Nick Boddington. If we could sub these three in for Janelle Arthur, Lazaro Arbos, and Curtis Finch Jr., we’d love what we were seeing.

If you want to see what we think the top 10 should sing for the upcoming performance show on Wednesday night, you can do so by heading on over to the link here.

Photo: Interscope