Stjörnuleit

There aren’t many things that I’m proud of but one is and will remain that I have never seen an episode of American Idol. Since Icelandic Idol (literally "Star search") is on television only in Iceland, I haven’t seen any of that either, but I have seen some of their Idol Extra show which contains behind the scenes footage and interviews with contestants and judges on popptíví over the Internet. Icelandic Idol appears to share the same popularity there as American Idol does here. During the first competition last year, 150,000 votes were cast on the final night. The population of Iceland is somewhere around 294,000. Half the votes that night went to singer/winner Kalli Bjarni. His first cd, released last fall, was mostly pop filler, though “Gleðitímar” is particularly nice and some of the cd’s lyrics were written by Stefán Hilmarson and Andrea Gylfadóttir. Strangely, Kalli does not appear to have a webpage anywhere. Maybe he's too busy playing soccer. This year’s Icelandic Idol winner is some chick named Hildur Vala. Although I’m not sure I recommend it, you can view performances of her (and the girl who was runner up) at Stjörnuleit's keppender page.