An Archuleta was kicked off American Idol this week, but it’s not the Golden Child David, but his father Jeff. Papa Archuleta has been long rumored to be a nuisance backstage, but until now Idol producers have not been prompted to take action. According to the AP, a lyric change leading up to this week’s performance was the straw that broke the overbearing camel’s back, as Jeff Archuleta added a lyric from Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girl” to David’s performance of “Stand By Me” and was subsequently banned from rehearsals. ”Beautiful Girl” uses a sample from “Stand By Me” and the problem is that Fox now has to pay royalties for the Kingston tune. Archuleta senior was reportedly warned about the backstage meddling.

Now if only they could ban those silly hats he wears.

On the night where Castro’s funny, endearing quirkitude might have shined brightest, the dreadlocked one got the boot. From his amused expression during the group number to his quizzical questioning of Ryan - he wondered, “Are you going to tell us now? It’s too early!” when Ryan gave us an ellimination tease before one of the commercial breaks about halfway through the show - he’s never been so funny.

Major kudos to the producer that was in charge of his goodbye video package. They managed to capture Castro’s I’m-in-my-own-world-but-it’s-really-nice-here mannerisms without making him seem crazy, which was one way that could have gone.

While I was sad to see him go, and Idol will be a little less interesting, at the end of the day it was the right time for him to go.

I present to you for your auralvisualtainment (NAW) two examples of the music video as art form. The first is from Beck, with “Hell Yes.” It would be appropriate to mention that Beck himself has a pretty solid breakdancing background (which shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody who’s seen his live show), and also to bring your attention to the phenomenon of “the uncanny valley.” The robots here are Sony’s QRIO, which were designed originally for a potential commercial release.

The second triptastic video is for a killer tune “Time To Pretend” by MGMT. Their exceptionally well-titled album Oracular Spectacular doesn’t have quite the same groovy poprock vibe of “Time” (it’s a little more groove and a lot less poprock) but could be a good addition to your listen-while-you-work collection.

First Beck…

The MGMT isn’t available for embedding, but you can (and should) watch it here.

This video has only been up on Youtube for 3.5 hours and it’s already got well over 20,000 hits, so it’s pretty safe to say there’s a bit of a buzz about Cookie’s performance of Mariah Carey’s “You’ll Always Be My Baby.” Personally, I thought it was a little weird (read more about why I think it was like eating a marshmellow omelette here), but it was definitely interesting. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think.