Sideshow

AMERICA KEEPS VOTING, AND VOTING, AND VOTING . . .: Scoff all you want at the American Idol concept. The country music version, which aired on cable's USA Network this year (and had judges that made viewers yearn not only for Simon but Paula and Randy, too), produced the No. 1 album on this week's Billboard country chart.

Not only that, the self-titled product from Nashville Star winner Buddy Jewell hits the top spot in its chart debut. And over on the all-genre albums chart, Buddy Jewell debuts at No. 13 (two spots behind first Idol winner Kelly Clarkson's Thankful).

THE SPITTING IMAGE: For all of you still peeved about Counting Crows postponing its March Sun Dome concert because of illness - or even if you've still got anger problems from the rescheduling of a March 2002 Elton John-Billy Joel concert in Tampa because Joel was sick - we give you this to think about:

John refused to cancel a stretch of European concerts this month after getting a bad cold. As the shows have gone on, MSNBC.com says, critics have complained about giant video-screen closeups of John blowing his nose and spitting into a bucket.

NOT THAT WE'RE JEALOUS: The biggest problem encountered during a Glamour magazine photo shoot with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and his daughters was finding a pair of jeans to fit him, the New York Post reports. Tyler, 56, eventually fit into a pair of Roberto Cavalli women's jeans that was the equivalent of a size 2 or 0.

Okay. We're jealous.

MAYBE THAT THING WITH DEMI ISN'T WORKING OUT AFTER ALL: Ashton Kutcher has signed to stay on Fox's That '70s Show through 2004-05, the Hollywood Reporter says, but his salary will be a paltry $250,000 to $300,000 per episode. Realizing that the Demi-coupling buzz wasn't worth as much as he'd thought, look for Kutcher to shortly dump Moore, hook up with soon-to-be-single Sharon Stone and renegotiate.

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