American Idol: What Happened? Not A Lot, Really This year American Idol has variously been about dead stalkers, endless judge-based in-fighting and bikinis. What's missing from this list? That's right, actual singing. But yesterday American Idol changed all this - for the first time in ages, American Idol wasn't about Paula fighting with Kara, or Simon fighting with Kara, or singers getting kicked out for being a bit too professional, or the sneaking suspicion that Kara can deploy evil hypnotic pulse-waves from her cranium to defeat her enemies. It was all about singing. And what was this brand new, contestant-centric American Idol like? Pretty blinking dull, as it happens.