Season 10 – where are they now?

Season 10 was the deepest season in the history of American Idol. No other season, even the first season – when the show was so popular even joke auditions attracted agents – churned out so many records, and so many recording artists. Champion Scotty McCreery is a country superstar, and most of the finalists have found success in mainstream media.

Where are they now: the season 10 finalists

Scotty McCreery – Scotty is a country superstar, and one of the most successful Idols. His Facebook page has over two million followers, his Twitter feed nearly a million, and his Instagram nearly 300,000. He has sold over two million albums, and recorded 4 top 20 singles. His You Tube videos have reached as many as 20 million hits, and 25 of them have reached a million hits. He is still only 22.

Lauren Alaina – The polarizing, flirting, stumbling 15 year old season 10 runner-up has morphed into a brassy, sassy country diva – just like everyone envisioned back when she was the world’s youngest cougar. Her first album sold over 300,000 copies and her latest single (below) became her 5th top 40 country hit. She has over a half a million followers on Twitter, and over a half a million followers on Facebook. Now 21, she is just getting started.

Haley Reinhart – She’s not quite A-list yet, but she’s working on it. Her first album reached #17 on the Billboard charts, she was part of the Post-Modern Jukebox cover of “All about that Bass,” and she seems to pop up everywhere recording artists gather – sort of like she’s the jazzy Kathy Griffin of pop music. Here’s her brand new single, from her brand new album.

Haley works a lot with Postmodern Jukebox and that crew, which includes Morgan James. Here they are dueting a Beatles song,

James Durbin – JD is out touring, kicking ass and taking names. Here’s his latest video:

Casey Abrams and JD did a gig together recently; here is their tribute to Prince:

Ok, one more … this is JD in concert. The show is over an hour long and the sound quality is really good.

Jacob Lusk – He’s still out there, Twittering away and singing in his rubbery voice. He talks about God a lot.

Casey Abrams – He’s touring, writing, recording, laughing, dancing, and being an all-around weird, crazy, cool guy. As usual. He collaborates with Haley Reinhart quite a bit … they worked together as part of the jazzy performance of “All about that Bass” with Post-Modern Jukebox:

Morgan James is the blonde stage right with the huge pipes; Telly Savalas’ daughter Ariana is the girl stage left. That video recently went over 14 million hits on You Tube. The video below, Casey’s song “Stuck in London” from his self-titled album, is one of my personal favorites by a former Idol. Once again, Haley came along for the ride.

Ok, I gotta add one more – I found this on James Durbin’s You Tube channel, from a concert they did together:

Stefano Langone – He was one of the lowest finishing contestants to return to the show and perform, and he did a couple of national radio tours in support of the singles “I’m on a Roll” and “Yes to Love” in 2012. He also performed at the 2015 Miss USA pageant (video below). He is currently living, writing, and performing in Los Angeles, with an album due out in May, 2016.

Paul McDonald – Paul’s most notorious move post-Idol was marrying and divorcing Nikki Reed. He is still making music, running around like a wild man, and living the Dream.

Pia Toscano – Pia sang in the finale, taking the pimp spot in her group and receiving a standing ovation. She’s been making the rounds, promoting the single “You’ll be King” that I embedded below. She has over 200,000 Twitter followers and 144,000 Facebook followers.

Thia Megia – I had a hard time finding her anywhere until I stumbled upon a related website about country singer Dale Watson. Thia was cast as the lead in”Yellow Rose,” an independent film also starring Watson. Thia plays a young Filipino singer, so maybe it’s typecasting, but still … she’s starring in a full-length motion picture. Not bad.

Naima Adedapo – Naima spends most of her time going back and forth between Nashville, where she is a staff songwriter, and concert dates in her native Midwest. In between her writing and performing work, she and her husband ride herd on their two children. Her website is a tremendous source for pictures, videos, and information on performance dates and tickets.

Karen Rodriguez – As we would expect, Karen is focused on a career in Latin music – and she is doing dammed well so far. As of May 1, 2016, Karen’s Facebook page has 196,099 likes, and her videos often surpass a million hits on YouTube.

In addition to her singing career, Karen is active in “Living Fabulosa,” which appears to be a Latina mentoring program with over a million members, under the umbrella of something called Orgullosa, which is Spanish for proud. I don’t speak Spanish so I’m not completely sure what it’s all about, but it looks like an impressive undertaking.

Ashton Jones – She isn’t as active in social media

as many of the others are, but she’s been busy. She wrote and performed a song for an album project spearheaded by Michelle Obama, and she has been featured on a Lecrae video that has close to 800,000 views on You Tube. The only recent news I found was that she performed at a Kentucky Derby party (first weekend of May, 2016) hosted by Morris Chestnutt.

She released an album called “Too Much” which can be heard on her website. This video was published August 24, 2013.