LEONA LEWIS: ALBUM OUT IN NOVEMBER ....

November is where it's at, with a sea of R&B albums raining down on its parade. Alicia Keys, Jordin Sparks, Nicole Scherzinger, Craig David, Letoya Luckett, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Janet Jackson and I'm sure there's more to come, are all dropping albums in the month of November - thanksgiving month. And you can also add X-Factor winner Leona Lewis to the list as well, except unlike the American acts, she won't be competing because she'll be too busy in her attempt to conquer the UK and the rest of Europe. Leona spent 10 months holed up in an LA studio to record her debut album on J Records. As the album is now completed, she was spotted traveling back to London from Heathrow Airport earlier this week:

Her album is scheduled to drop 5th November 2007 in the UK. Her first single Bleeding Love is produced by Ryan "Alias" Tedder (the producer behind Jennifer Lopez's latest new single Do It Well) and will be released 29th August 2007. Leona's album will be released in the states early 2008. This week, Simon Cowell spoke about Leona's album: "We've been working on it for 10 months, we could have just thrown it out but we didn't want to do that. Leona is as good as early Whitney or Mariah". I love Leona but I don't necessarily remember him complimenting Latoya London, Mandisa, Lakeisha or Jennifer Hudson like that during American Idol, and they sounded just as good as Leona, if not, better. Leona has a cutesy tone to her vocal delivery but those American black singers have more powerfully-generated soul, and they always take you to church, which is something Leona hasn't been able to do. Could it be that Simon has a little crush on Leona all because of her similar physical appearance to that of his current girlfriend Terry Seymour? The X-Factor is back tonight on ITV1 at 7:40pm and judging by some of the previews, it's going to be absolutely banana's. [thanks Aidan].