American Idol Season 2 Recap
In Season 2, Seacrest surfaced as the lone host. Dunkleman
reportedly hated working on the show and the studio was dissatisfied
with his performance. Kristin Holt was a special correspondent.
This time, Ruben Studdard emerged as the winner with Clay
Aiken as runner-up. Out of 24 million votes recorded, Studdard
finished 130,000 votes ahead of Aiken. There was discussion
in the communication industry about the phone system being
overloaded, and that more than 150 million votes were dropped,
making the voting suspect. Since then, the voting methods
have been modified to avoid this problem.
In an interview prior to fifth season, a statement by executive
producer Nigel Lythgoe suggested that Aiken had led the fan
voting from the wild card week onward until the finale. Clay
Aiken became the first American Idol non-winning contestant
to have a U.S. Hot 100 number-one with "This Is the Night",
written by British songwriter Chris Braide with Gary Burr
and Aldo Nova. Studdard and Aiken both released albums in
the fall of 2006. Third place finalist Kimberley Locke's debut
album, One Love was released in 2006. Her second album, Based
on a True Story, was released in May 2007.
Fourth-place finisher and former Marine Josh Gracin became
a country artist. His first album spawned three charted singles,
including the number-one U.S. country song, "Nothing
to Lose". He is signed with Lyric Street Records.
Sixth-place finisher Carmen Rasmusen signed with independent
country record label Lofton Creek Records, and released her
debut album and a single in 2007.
After a strong showing during the early stages of auditions,
contestant Frenchie Davis was disqualified from the competition
when topless photos of her surfaced on the internet. Shortly
afterwards she landed a role in the Broadway musical Rent,
and continues to work on Broadway. Read more about American
Idol Season 2
American
Idol Official Site
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