American Idol Judges
Simon Cowell
Simon was born in 1959 to Eric and Julie Cowell in Brighton East Sussex, England. He's an Enlish artist and an executive for Sony BMG in the UK.
He is notorious for his unsparingly blunt and often controversial criticism of the contestants. He is known for combining activities in the television and music industries, having produced singles and records for various television characters such as the Power Rangers.
Four notable oversights of Cowell's are that he auditioned the Spice Girls but was not interested, turning down Take That, deciding that songwriter and front man Gary Barlow was too fat to be a star, and just this past season of American Idol, he passed on Taylor Hicks who went on to become season five's American Idol winner.
Cowell became a judge on the first season of Pop Idol in the year of 2001, and did the same for American Idol in 2002 and his acerbic style of judging was a major reason for these shows becoming popular. This was especially so for American Idol, where in its first season, talk about "that nasty guy Simon" gained the show media attention, more so than the hosts or contestants. Cowell's fame (or infamy) grew, fed by his deliberately insincere signature phrase, "I don't mean to be rude, but …", inevitably followed by an unsparing denigration of the contestant's talents, personality, or even physical appearance. One from 2005 was "You look like the Incredible Hulk's wife." Cowell also appeared on the one-off World Idol program in 2003, where it became clear that each country's version of the Idol had attempted to come up with its own "Simon Cowell", further proving his effectiveness as a villain. In 2003, Cowell placed #33 on Channel 4's list of the all-time 100 Worst Britons perhaps due to some people perceiving him as spiteful and arrogant. Cowell's S Records signed the top two finishers of the first season of Pop Idol, Will Young and Gareth Gates, both of whom went on to have #1 UK hits.
In June 2003, Cowell sold his half-share in S Records for $42 million to BMG, thus becoming a multi-millionaire.
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul was born June 19, 1962 in California to Harry and Lorraine Abdulis. She's an American Grammy -winning, multi-platinum singer, choreographer, dancer and actress. In the 1980s, her career rose rapidly, from being a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to being a highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era, then to being a pop music singer with a string of top hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After that she suffered a series of reverses in her professional and personal life, until she found renewed fame and success in the 2000s as a judge on the highly rated television series American Idol.
Abdul went on to serve as the choreographer for the 1980s videos of singer Janet Jackson. She also choreographed music videos for Duran Duran, Prince, The Jacksons, Kool & the Gang, Luther Vandross, George Michael and Dolly Parton. She choreographed and appeared in Michael Jackson's music video "Liberian Girl", and Janet Jackson's music videos "What Have You Done For Me Lately" and "Nasty".
In film, Abdul choreographed the dance sequences in the films Coming to America, The Running Man and American Beauty, as well as Cuba Gooding Jr.'s touchdown celebration in Jerry Maguire, the giant keyboard sequence involving Tom Hanks’ character in Big, and The King's touchdown celebration, as seen in a string of popular Burger King television commercials that aired
In 2002, Abdul appeared as one of three judges for the reality television music competition show American Idol. Abdul, along with fellow judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, was to evaluate the talent of a large group of young amateur singers, eliminate most of them in various audition rounds, and then judge the finalists as American television viewers voted on which finalists would continue to each successive round, until all but the winner were eliminated. Abdul won praise as a sympathetic and compassionate judge, while garnering criticism for being too sympathetic with "bad" singers. She seemed especially kind when her critiques were compared against those of fellow judge Simon Cowell, who was often blunt in his appraisals of the contestants' performances
Randy Jackson
Music Producer/TV personality
Randy was born in 1956 to Herman and Julia Jackson (No relation to Michael Jackson). He's been in the music industry since the early 1980's as a performer, producer, businessman, bass guitarist, pianist, television broadcaster, record company executive and music critic.
After more than a decade in Los Angeles, Jackson was a respected industry veteran, whose credits included over a thousand gold and platinum albums. His first reaction to the concept of American Idol was not positive. "TV's corny, cheesy, whatever," he told LA radio DJ JoJo Wright, in an interview posted on the deejay's website. Despite his years of experience in the music business, Jackson had spent little time in front of the camera--aside from a 1992 bass guitar instruction video, Randy Jackson: Mastering the Groove, and a guest appearance in the 1990 television special, Mother Goose Rock n' Rhyme. "I've been behind the scenes with all these artists," he said in a Newsweek on-line interview. "I've seen celebrity up close, but I've never really lived it."
Jackson has been a judge with American Idol since its inception in 2002. On the show, he is known for taking a middle road of criticism between the supportiveness of Paula Abdul and the nastiness of Simon Cowell. He has popularized "pitchy" as the way to describe off-key singing. He is also renowned for his heavy use of slang terms, most notably the words "dude", "dawg", and "dope". Jackson sometimes also refers to the group of male semifinalists as "the dogg pound" (though during season five, the female contestants were also included). Widely well regarded in the music industry, Jackson's commentary is generally that of constructive criticism. He tells the contestants what a record company label executive would be thinking, but what the executive would not actually tell them. He also has a very large attraction to the words "All right, dude, now check this out" right before appraising a contestant's song.
I got their Bio courtesy Wikipedia. Later I'll you all what I think about each of them. Have a great weekend
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