COMMENTARY
By Linda Holmes
MSNBC
Updated: 5:37 p.m. ET April 3, 2006
If you keep up with “American Idol,�?you know that contestants often find themselves compared to their predecessors from previous seasons. Taylor Hicks gets the surprising news that he dresses like Clay Aiken, while Kellie Pickler finds herself favorably compared to Carrie Underwood. But can the new contestants be reduced to mathematical formulas based on the old ones? We sat down and crunched the numbers.