Posts Tagged ‘Results’

Newer Entries »

The Los Angeles Screwjob

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

I’ll have more on the results show much, much later but I have to put this up right away. The Idol wildcard was going to be a bad idea to begin with, and the specter of producer manipulation was hanging over everything like a faulty chandelier.

Now, this may sound like bragging, but: I told you so! I said after the Group 3 performances that if Felicia Barton wouldn’t make it by voting, the producers would never be invited to the wildcard because she was probably a lose-lose for TPTB. Yet, if that wasn’t bad enough, it got worse.

Let’s look at the entire lineup of wildcard picks, separated by Group.

Group 1

  • Ricky Braddy
  • Tatiana Del Toro
  • Anoop Desai

Group 2

  • Megan Corkrey
  • Matt Giraud
  • Jesse Langseth
  • Jasmine Murray

Group 3

  • Von Smith

Let’s consider what we know about each of the group. Group 1 had plenty of hype, but really didn’t live up to it. The surprises there was Braddy coming out of nowhere and surprising everyone, Desai choking, and del Toro being surprisingly okay. That’s fair enough. I have no quibble with the Group 1 picks as is.

It’s the Group 2 picks where things get screwy. Giraud and Murray? Are you freaking kidding me? They were both complete and utter disasters – and whatever the “package” spin is, they can’t sing well. At all. Given the glut of talent in Group 3, only one of Langseth and Corkrey should have made it – and while I say it should be Langseth, most people believe it should be Corkrey. Fair enough – either way, it’s three bad picks out of four. Ouch. And why half of the wildcard picks out of, by universal consensus, the worst group? There should have only been one.

And then we get to Group 3. There has to be more than one pick – and if there was only one pick, why was it Von Smith? Why wasn’t it Felicia Barton? Or Ju’Not Joyner? Heck, even Kristen McNamara was better than Smith. Von Smith wasn’t bad, but it was just okay. It was not wildcard worthy.

The wildcard round is as bad as I thought it would be – if not worse. The producers have clearly decided on what they want – mostly cannon fodder. They don’t want to take any chances of “surprises”. They don’t want a competition; they want a coronation. This was the Los Angeles Screwjob.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves; in a just world they would be walking around the streets of Los Angeles tarred and feathered. In the pantheon of low Idol moments, this is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | Comments Off

Group 2: Winners and Losers

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

I like being right as much as any other analyst/pundit, so allow me to do the Happy Dance at calling Group 2 perfectly. It might well be the only chance I get to do it, given how unpredictable this season is likely to end up being.

Just like last week we’ll do Winners and Losers.

Winners

Kris Allen: If there was one surprise of the group, Allen was it. Few would have thought he would have secured a slot in the top 12 with the kind of performance – and while in most nights it wouldn’t, in the midst of so many unimpressive and disappointing performances it was.

Allen was a little lucky, but the reality is luck plays a part on Idol. If Allen is a smart guy, he should take this golden opportunity and run with it. If there’s anyone who can take the underdog-who-got-much-better role this year, Allen appears to be it.

Allison Iraheta: Iraheta was also relatively unknown before this week, and her version of Alone came in for high praise from a lot of quarters. I wasn’t as impressed by it as most, though. However, she’s impressed a lot of people which will help her build the fanbase she needs to last into the competition. Given how little pre-show publicity she received, she needs it. Still, her distinctive looks, good performance ability, and decent enough voice should put her in good stead to last long.

Losers

Meghan Corkrey – Was there a bigger disappointment on Wednesday night? As I said after the performances, Put Your Record On is a classic trap song. It’s to her credit that it wasn’t a complete train wreck – she has a wonderfully unique, maybe even quirky voice – but she needed to be smarter about song choice.

Factoid of the week: Put Your Record On has now been sung twice and ended up not advancing its singer both times. I wish it was unique in that, but no. There are at least a few other songs in the same category. The worst offender in that list, though: I Wanna Dance With Somebody, which has been done four times and never advanced anyone, with only one wildcard callback. (The singer called back didn’t advance past the wildcard, either.)

Adam Lambert: I seem to be establishing a trend here. For the second week in a row, the top pick of the guys has ended up in the losers side of the aisle. That’s not normal, is it?

Well, there’s a reason for this. Going into the semifinals, both Lambert and Danny Gokey were both regarded as favorites and frontrunners. In both cases, however, there’s now a large “yes, they can sing, but…” attached to both of them. With Lambert, it’s his overall performance style that could hurt him. He’s not a bad singer at all, but his style is so divisive that he might not go as far as people think. Forget the “he could win” lines I’m seeing – he won’t. Taylor Hicks notwithstanding, you cannot win with the kind of mixed reviews Lambert got, and probably will get in weeks to come. He’s a candidate for the “favorite that goes too soon, many say” spot.

Kara DioGuardi and Paula Abdul: As I said: the whole Paula-Kara spot has taken on a life of its own, and didn’t things look… just a wee bit awkward? It was almost like there was this huge, transparent wall between them. Whatever the case, it made for some awkward TV. Had this happened any other week, it would have been written about everywhere – but with the ghastly shows this week it didn’t get any, with so much else to write about.

Pre-season predictions: There’s a good reason I haven’t speculated much on who’ll do well in the semifinal rounds before the actual group rounds. There just isn’t enough information. Youtube clips, a brief audition, soundbites from Hollywood… I’d rather wait for someone to sing “in anger” before making any judgments.

There’s also the big issue of looking like a giant idiot when predictions turn out to horribly, horribly wrong. Look at what happened to all the predictions that Jasmine Murray and Matt Giraud would do well. Instead, they both occupy the Sanjaya Zone -  our own version of a hall of shame.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | 1 Comment »

Group 1 Results: Winners and Losers

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Well, that was an interesting results show. I freely admit to being more than a little surprised Michael Sarver got through to the finals; I thought he was definitely in the mix for the wildcard, but not in the picture for the third slot. Obviously, I was wrong.

I’ll do something different this year for my analysis articles. I’ll have a regular winners and losers section each week, where I can dissect who gained and who lost out of what happened that particular week. Without further ado…

Winners

Alexis Grace: Grace got some early airtime in the auditions, but despite that she didn’t receive the kind of hype others received. With one song this week, many think that she’s catapulted herself to frontrunner status.

Now, I happen to think she’s an excellent singer that deserves a great deal of praise. I’d be real careful before putting that tag on her. She got to the finals with a 42-year-old song. Now, obviously, she’s not going to keep singing songs that old all the time, but before I can give her some support she needs to prove herself with some newer material. She’s probably safe to at least the tour, but beyond that we’d be real careful.

Michael Sarver: Oh boy. He’s one lucky guy. Simon’s comment probably gave him at least the 20,000 votes that put him over Anoop Desai, and in all likelihood a lot more. He shouldn’t even have been in the mix, but thanks to a few kind words he now finds himself in the top 12. Imagine that.

Michael needs to improve a great deal from what we saw in the group round, otherwise he’ll have a new group of contestants in his corner no one really wants: Vote for the Worst.

Losers

Danny Gokey: Wait, you might ask. Didn’t I just say yesterday he won the episode? So how can he be a loser?

Danny had immense expectations on him before the show. Anything else than a win would have been a disaster. I’m not convinced he lived up to all of them. Hero was good, but it wasn’t good enough to stick in voter’s minds when the finals start in a few weeks time. He’ll still be portrayed as a frontrunner when it arrives, but don’t believe it for a second. He doesn’t nearly have the kind of momentum he had before this week.

Anoop Desai: Can you still be considered a frontrunner if you can’t even beat a so-so singer in Michael Sarver? He was good enough that he’ll still probably end up in the wildcard, but this was about the worst start imaginable for him. He needs a knock-it-out-of-the-park wildcard performance to get in. The result can’t have been good for his morale.

Vote for the Worst: VFTW’s advantage in influencing results has always been that they are organized, and have a definite direction, when everyone else doesn’t. They’re going to be strongest at the start of the season, then fade as the fanbases form. If they couldn’t even get Tatiana Del Toro to fourth with a so-so field right now, what does this say about their real power down the road?

The whole “group round” system: Whatever happens in the next groups, we can already call the group rounds a loss. Why? There is going to be a lot of good talent left on the table that didn’t have a week to mature they would have had before. Ryan even hung a lampshade on the “rawness” of the contestants. There are a lot of people in this group who have a lot of potential who could have used more screen time, and two weeks of better, more refined performances. Instead, we have two more weeks of fumbling singers, and cringing audiences. This is not good.

If you need a reminder of how bad the group round might result, consider this. To get into the top 12, contestants will have one shot to impress America – and if they don’t, maybe one chance to impress the judges. It took David Cook his third performance to deliver Hello, his definite breakout moment In short, David Cook might not have even made the finals under a group system.

Buckle up, folks. This is going to be a rough three weeks. Two more weeks of rookie performances, and then a week that’s bound to be full of blatant bias and manipulation of public opinion. Oops.

Wildcard picks, revised

I have to amend our wildcard picks out of this group, since Sarver got in directly. The Desai/Del Toro/Braddy trio is probably pretty certain of slots, particularly Braddy. Anne Marie Boskovich is the best candidate out of everyone else, so she gets the fourth slot almost by default.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | Comments Off

Newer Entries »