‘American Idol’ notes: Carrie Underwood, Nicki Minaj, Jessica Sanchez

This is an interesting time when it comes to the “American Idol” world. We’re still months away from the show returning to Fox, weeks before the release of the winner Phillip Phillips’ debut album, and also months after the tour from the past season is over. With that in mind, there’s not so much to talk about other than some judging gossip, and a question about what one of the show’s most memorable contestants are up to.

Let’s talk judges – We’re going to kick things off here with some talk from both Carrie Underwood and Nicki Minaj about the judges’ positions, largely due to the fact that one of them is now a part of the show, whereas the other has more or less faced judging rumors all summer long.

Let’s start with Carrie, who admitted as a part of the CMA Awards festivities to Ryan Seacrest’s radio show that she did not particularly think that she would be judge material for the show:

“I’ve never been asked to be a part of ‘American Idol’ in that capacity. I don’t know if I could ever judge. I think I would be nice to everybody, even if they really needed to hear the truth. So, I don’t think I would probably make a very good judge.“

Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj is now showing nearly any of the same issues here as Carrie, as she explains that she really has no problem at all being hard on contestants that she needed to be hard on. With that in mind, she gave the following quote to MTV News:

“I went into it thinking I want to be honest. I remember that some of the toughest criticism I’ve ever gotten is what stood out in my brain and what made me better … I didn’t want to go on the show and be phony to the contestants. I want them to have a real idea of the business, because this is real life.”

Where in the world is Jessica Sanchez? – It’s almost jarring that after several months of near-constant news about our reigning runner-up, she is being awfully quiet at the moment. So what is going on here? Really, it just has to do with her getting an opportunity to actually be a teenage girl for a while.

After touring the country and doing extra work for a while, Jessica is recording and laying low for a while so that she can rest up for the promotional tour that is going to come for her album later next year.