Y! Music Weekly Music News Recap

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1. The Graying Of America - The Soul Patrol has spoken, and Taylor Hicks is your new American Idol.
2. Love, Angel, Music…BABY! - Gwen Stefani’s a mom.
3. Tommy Hilfiger’s Appetite For Destruction - The designer gets slaphappy with Axl Rose.
4. Madonna Hits The Road - Tickets: only $400 (yes, that is U.S. currency). Is Madge worth it?
5. Being A Dixie Chick Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry - The Chicks aren’t ready to make nice with George Bush.
6. Paris Hilton’s “Crazy” Idea - The celebutante-turned-singer wants to cover Gnarls Barkley. That’s hot.
7. Pussycat Dolls: Not Child’s Play - Hasbro shelves plans to manufacture PCD, um, “action figures.”
8. Janet’s Weighty Issue - Miss Jackson claims she gained 60 pounds for a movie role. A movie role she didn’t get. D’oh!
9. Joan Baez Branches Out - The folk singer takes up residence in a redwood–with a treemate named “Butterfly.”
10. Jamaican Ska Legend Desmond Dekker Dies - The man behind the classic “Israelites” succumbs to a heart attack at age 64.

Well, another season of American Idol has sadly and somewhat anti-climactically come to an end, leaving a gaping void in all of our lives and hearts that can’t quite be filled by So You Think You Can Dance or America’s Got Talent. But until season 6 of Idol begins in eight months, we’ll just have to cling to our memories of this week’s Idol finale: the good (Elliott Yamin’s sizzling duet with Mary J. Blige), the bad (that Meat Loaf/Katharine McPhee trainwreck), the ugly (frog-throated Toni Braxton foghorning her way through “In The Ghetto”), the weird (David Hasselhoff in tears), and the just plain shark-jumping (Clay Aiken, enjoying an unusually good hair day, duetting with spasmodic Aiken lookalike Michael Sandecki. Seriously, WTF?). But after all the hokey dinner-theater medleys and Brokenote Cowboys and recycled-footage montages were finally over, we had a new American Idol: this season’s dark (make that gray) horse, Taylor Hicks. Our congrats go out to the Soul Patrol, and we send our condolences to the Kat Pack…

OK, so that’s it for this week’s Top Events. Come back next Friday for more….oh wait, we’re not done? Sorry, we assumed there was nothing worth talking about besides Idol. But hey, it turns out a whole bunch of other stuff happened this week! For instance, Gwen Stefani just popped out her first Hollaback Baby, while her fellow pop queen Janet Jackson’s just dropped 60 pounds. And Janet’s claiming she gained the weight in the first place for a role in the movie Tennessee. Funny, then, that the role ultimately went to Mariah Carey–who, last time we checked, has not gained 60 pounds. Hmmm…

One pop queen who’s definitely not gaining 60 pounds any time soon is Madonna, who at age 47 still looks svelte and jiggle-free in the slinky Spandex leotards she’s wearing on her just-launched Confessions tour. She’s also still managing to infuriate good pious Catholics everywhere, by performing while wearing a crown of thorns and hanging spread-eagle on a giant cross. But Madonna insists, in a WWJD-style statement defending this stunt, “I don’t think Jesus would be mad at me and the message I’m trying to send.” What does Catholic League president Bill Donohue have to say to that? “Poor Madonna keeps trying to shock, but all she succeeds in doing is coming across as a boring bigot.” Ooh, snap…

OK, time’s up–for real this time–but come back next Friday to soothe your post-Idol withdrawals with another week of amusing and bemusing music news. Seacrest out!

Lyndsey Parker
Yahoo! Music