A University “crooner” almost knows how country-rock band Dr. Hook felt performing its early ’70s hit “Cover of the Rolling Stone.”
The lyrics to the song celebrate the joys of stardom, which — from the band’s perspective — peak at appearing on the cover of the legendary music magazine.
Mallory Mayeux, a mass communication sophomore and ex-American Idol contestant, recently appeared in Rolling Stone, but she did not quite make the cover.
The magazine spotlighted Mayeux and three other American Idol “rejects” inside its March 4 issue in a feature called “Life After ‘Idol’: The Losers Speak.”
She had not heard “Cover of the Rolling Stone” before she appeared in the magazine, but Mayeux said she has heard it a lot since it hit magazine racks.
“Everybody’s playing it for me lately,” Mayeux said.
Mayeux performed The Pointer Sisters’ song “I’m So Excited” on the Jan. 21 episode of the Fox TV show. Celebrity judges cut her in the third round.
This week, judges narrowed the competition to 12 finalists from an original 70,000 who tried out, according to Fox.
But media coverage for Mayeux has not stopped after only a few minutes on the show.
A Houston news station recently filmed Mayeux in her dorm for another post-Idol show.
Though the Rolling Stone appearance came as a surprise to Mayeux because of her less-than-ideal American Idol circumstances, being in the magazine still is “surreal,” she said.
“It’s kind of funny to be a reject from something big,” she said. “If these people really wanted to shun us, it wouldn’t be so big.”
Attention from the press has been mostly fun for Mayeux, but some negative comments — including some by other University students in a January Reveille article — have angered her.
“Every now and then I’ll get a little touchy about it, but as a whole — not really,” she said.
A woman who watched Mayeux’s performance told The Reveille that Mayeux was “an embarrassment for the University.”
Mayeux felt the comment was out of line.
“What does the University have to do with it?” she asked.
Krista Keen, a studio art sophomore and Mayeux’s friend, watched the Jan. 21 American Idol episode with Mayeux. She also did not like other students making reference to the University.
“I think they’re taking it overboard,” Keen said. “They’re taking it too seriously — it’s just fun.”
Mayeux is not the only “reject” getting continued attention after being snubbed by American Idol judges.
Articles this week on www.billboard.com, the online version of the magazine that gauges music industry sales, and www.rollingstone.com both featured Mayeux’s fellow “reject” William Hung, an engineering junior at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hung performed a version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on the show. Rolling Stone described his performance as “herky-jerky and oddly alluring.”
The performance earned Hung a recording contract with Koch Records. His first album, entitled “The True Idol,” is scheduled for an April 6 release, and “She Bangs” will be the first single.
A picture of Hung performing on Idol even has appeared on pop-up Internet ads offering a $50 gift certificate to Web surfers who can identify the song he performed on the show.
Mayeux said she is “kind of bewildered” that Hung would be picked out of all the “rejects” for a recording contract, but she is happy for him.
“Even though he’s supposed to look foolish, he’s just so cute,” she said. “I say good for him.”