American Idol or JLo’s my girl.

American Idol has just started it’s tenth season and as XFactor makes it’s trip over the Atlantic stealing the Cowell and jettisoning the crown princess of the toon into the hearts of middle America, it’s time for a shuffle.

The Big Dawg Randy Jackson is the only returning judge now that Paula’s gone proper tonto and Ellen decided she wasn’t keen on being mean. So they’ve brought on two new judges, and bloody well done FOX because these are J to the Lopez and Steven ‘face of a sexy Lion’ Tyler.

The new judges have just the right amount of industry klout, rock-star mental and bubbly enthusiasm. Steven Tyler is like a Muppet caricature version of himself and can’t seem to string a sentence together without screaming at the end whilst imagining making love in an elevator with all of the hot auditionees. Jennifer Lopez appears to be a superfan who was allowed to come and play, except she’s JENNIFER FREAKING LOPEZ, right. She’s like an articulate human version of Cheryl Tweedy/Cole.

Randy is, you know, Randy, desperate to be, but never near to being the head judge. It’s going to be wonderful to see him do a Paula as he gets sidelined by the newbies.

The audionees are, as ever, bigger and better than the UK. I’m already in love with 3 of them. I love the 17 year old big nosed boy, adore the musical theatre awkward girl and the nice as and American as apple pie girl who video blogs her life. I have a feeling that I will forget all these people by next week and fall in love with others but hey that’s the joy of Idol.

It’s more of the same obviously but I feel with the judges shake up XFactor might not have the easy ride they’re expecting. If you can put up with the awful ITV2 trails between sections then this is a definite Thursday night watch.

Things I didn’t type too much about that requires a mention

  • Ryan Secrest’s newly frozen gayface
  • Oddly placed Yugoslavian war stories
  • The ‘it’s hard in the Bronx with skinny jeans’ sob story

Enjoy