"American Idol" Runner-Up Blake Lewis Dropped by Arista

The post-American Idol curse continues, as season six runner-up Blake Lewis revealed in an interview that he has already been dropped by his label, Arista. Lewis signed with the label last August and released his debut album Audio Day Dream in December. The album has sold roughly 300,000 copies since and has not charted any singles. In the interview with Maximum Threshold, Lewis expressed that he never really wanted to sign with a major label but that his second place win behind Jordin Sparks required it. It's been a rough stretch for Idol contestants not named Clarkson, Underwood, Daughtry and Cook: Both Taylor Hicks and Katherine McPhee, season five's winner and runner-up, were dropped from their respective labels after eighteen months and season two champ Ruben Studdard was dropped from J Records for falling "short of expectations."

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Song Stories

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette | 1973

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."

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