Depending on your opinion of Aerosmith, you may want to close your eyes and/or fall asleep when frontman Steven Tyler appears as a judge on the next season of "American Idol." Then again, you may not want to miss a thing.
Despite its ratings juggernaut status, it’s no secret that American Idol has been in decline for the past few seasons, and with Simon Cowell bowing out at the end of the most recent season, it was only a matter of time before the brain trust at Fox decided to shake things up, and apparently that shakeup is happening now. Ellen DeGeneres has stepped down, noting that it was hard for her “to judge people and sometimes hurt their feelings.” With both Ellen and Simon gone, the Fox brass have apparently axed the only remaining judge with two capital letters in her last name, the barely-famous Kara DioGuardi, leaving Randy Jackson as the only returning Idol judge.
Depending on your opinion of the show, though, it’s not all bad news. TMZ has it on good authority that none other than Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will come in to replace Simon and/or Ellen in the show’s more traditional three judge format next season. Numerous outlets have also reported that Jennifer “J-Lo” Lopez will be filling the third judging slot, leaving us with a Randy, J-Lo, Steven Tyler panel.
All these moves seem to make sense for the somewhat-ailing show, and although J-Lo has struggled to remain relevant of late, she’s certainly still a reasonably big star and much more famous (and likely coherent, though we admit that was part of the draw) than Paula Abdul was at any point during her American Idol run. Steven Tyler is also an interesting judge, though based on Aerosmith’s more recent commercial endeavors, one might question his ability to say no. Regardless, we know that Tyler’s at least good for a season or two of awesomeness followed by three decades of sucky mediocrity.
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