CLAY AIKEN SAYS SHOW THAT LAUNCHED HIS CAREER IS TOO SLICK

[Brian Damage]

May 4, 2008 -- Clay Aiken doesn't have time to watch "American Idol." But the season two runner-up says that even if he did, it wouldn't be on his must-watch TV list.

"I would never in any way negate the fact that it's put me where I am," says Aiken, who will wrap his Broadway run in "Spamalot" on Sunday and drop his fourth album ("On My Way Here") on Tuesday. "But I miss the innocence of 'Idol' of seasons one, two and three."

That innocence, he says, was expressed in the raw, unpolished look and lack of experience of the kids who were competing.

"Me, Ruben (Studdard) and Kim (Locke) had no chance [in the record industry]. We were all misfits in some way. If you look at Ruben and me, we looked like a really bad version of Laurel and Hardy."

Aiken says it bothered him when he heard that one of this year's contestants - Carly Smithson - already had a record deal. And that another, frontrunner David Archuleta, won the junior version of "Star Search." Says Aiken, "After Fantasia left, and after Kelly [Clarkson] won her two Grammys, I feel like it's been a little more polished, not the boy and girl next door that America wanted to help."

Aiken has sold six million albums, despite the fact that, with his emphasis on power ballads, he gets little radio airplay. "I'm not cool enough to be on the radio," he says. "Even with the first album ("Measure of a Man") five years ago, people were trying to put me in these [cool] clothes and get me to sing certain songs. And I said, 'You know what? There's a point where you become a caricature.' On tour, I'll do 'When Doves Cry' or 'Baby Got Back.' But they're done tongue in cheek because I know for a fact that I could never sing them."

But he can sing Broadway. Reminded that "Idol" judge Simon Cowell predicted that after the show, Aiken could have a huge career on the Great White Way, Aiken says, "At the time he said it, Simon meant it as an insult. But if you can do Broadway, you can do anything. Simon can kiss my foot."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05042008...dol_109157.htm