The grind of Idol made film a breeze for Clarkson and Guarini:

"From Justin to Kelly", a 20th Century Fox movie musical about two students who fall in love on spring break in Miami, is set to open nationwide on June 20. The movie went from conception to completion in record time - about 2 1/2 months.

Asked how the "American Idol" competition prepared them for making the film, Clarkson said, "By the time we got to the movie, it was a piece of cake."

"Yeah, it really was," added Guarini, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "We had worked so hard. We had the big show, the touring, which was 30 shows in 40 days, and on our 10 off days."

He predicted the duo will be able "to do any TV show, any tour, any movie and any record from now on, because it will never, ever be like this again ... There will never, ever be so much crammed into one time." [AP]

I am DJing weddings again for the cold hard cash, so I have had to tune in to what's going on in the world of Top 40. I have listened to straight CHR (across the board hits in rock, R&B, hip-hop, pop, AC, etc), and urban CHR (jammin' hip-hop and R&B) and of course there is a lot of vulgar drivel, as always, but once you change your range of perception from "what would I like to listen to" to what would be catchy and drive people to the dancefloor at a party, there's also plenty of fun stuff out there as well.

We saw Kelly Clarkson sing "Miss Independent" live on American Idol 2 when the record was released and I thought it was terrible. What was really terrible was her live performance, though, because it's a great, edgy, even rocking R&B/rock/pop record with a charging, soaring chorus, which yet again shows how much production trickery goes into making most pop sound good - I didn't even recognize the record as the same song until I heard a DJ mention Clarkson had debuted it on Idol.

I love that record - damn, it's a weird world.