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"Long-time American Idol fans will have noticed some changes on the current ninth season. Since Paula Abdul stepped down from the judging panel, a host of A-list guests - including Victoria Beckham, Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry - have tried to fill her shoes. Last night, new judge Ellen DeGeneres took her place alongside Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi and Randy Jackson to either make or break the dreams of the American public. As Idol continues its Hollywood Week, we caught up with Kara to discuss the latest lineup. How do you think Ellen has fitted in on the judging panel? &amp;quot;I think she brings a sense of humour and she knows more about music than you would think. You have to remember that we&amp;#039;re being edited, so my experience with her in Hollywood is very different to what you&amp;#039;re seeing. It&amp;#039;s edited a specific way because it has to be about the contestants. But when I was sitting next to her, I thought she had a really good handle on whether a contestant had a good star quality.&amp;quot; How is Idol shaping up without Paula? &amp;quot;I really don&amp;#039;t wanna speak about Paula&amp;#039;s absence because you really can&amp;#039;t compare them both. I know that it can be tough coming in, but I think that Ellen did an incredible job.&amp;quot; Have the roles on the judging panel changed now that she&amp;#039;s gone? &amp;quot;Paula was very nurturing. At least for me, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a shot. In the beginning stages, we need to put 170 through. So if you judge them the way we do in the final stages, we&amp;#039;re not gonna have any contestants! I think I was a lot more supportive in the beginning rounds than I would have been in the previous year.&amp;quot; There were rumours about Ellen and Simon not getting on... &amp;quot;I think that you have to take every rumour that you hear about American Idol with a grain of salt - they&amp;#039;re usually not true. Last year, it was &amp;#039;Kara and Paula fight&amp;#039; - it&amp;#039;s ridiculous. We&amp;#039;re all there to find the next idol and I know that Ellen and Simon both take that very seriously.&amp;quot; What do you think about Howard Stern possibly joining the judging panel? &amp;quot;Right now, that&amp;#039;s a rumour and I don&amp;#039;t know if I can even speak on it. I don&amp;#039;t know if he has any kind of musical background. If you&amp;#039;re gonna replace Simon, you have to have that background. You have to have someone who signs great artists - people like Leona Lewis who he signed early on and turned into great stars. You need to have someone who knows that kind of stuff.&amp;quot; Last night, we had someone singing a version of Abdul&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Straight Up&amp;#039; and another contestant performing their take on one of your songs. How did you rate those? &amp;quot;I was shocked when that girl sang &amp;#039;Terrified&amp;#039; because it wasn&amp;#039;t released. I put it up on my site last year and there was no way she could find the sheet music. I think she did a really good job and a nice interpretation of it. I was pretty impressed by her. The &amp;#039;Straight Up&amp;#039; was just genius!&amp;quot; Who do you think would be a good mentor this year? &amp;quot;I really like Harry Connick Jr - I think he would be great, and I love Meat Loaf because I think he&amp;#039;d be fun for rock. We actually recorded a song recently and I was very impressed with how he brought out a different side to me vocally.&amp;quot; What do you see as the biggest mistake contestants make during Hollywood Week? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s usually song choice - they take on something which is way too big for them, or they get praised in the audition round and they completely change during Hollywood Week. Or they stand on that big stage and they can&amp;#039;t fill it up.&amp;quot; Randy Jackson has said that he would like a girl to win this season. Do you have a preference? &amp;quot;I would love to see a girl win. This year, with everything going on in music at the moment, it&amp;#039;s definitely all about the girls. You&amp;#039;ve got Taylor Swift, Beyonc\u00E9, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Lady GaGa...&amp;quot; American Idol continues tonight at 9pm on Fox. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/interviews/a202522/kara-dioguardi-american-idol/>