American Idol - Season 8 - Page 45

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Hanson:
I am already dreading the "withdrawal" of not seeing your posts several times a week until next January (that seems SO far away)! Are there any other shows/threads that you regularly contribute to to help ease the pain/reduce the "shakes"?

Re: American Idol - Season 8

You should check out the "So You Think You Can Dance" thread for this summer.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Agreed. Not only is the show itself better than AI, the threads are better, too!

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Well yes and no. Rodgers has kept the idea of performing with Queen as a possibility for big shows or charity events.

As for Queen+ Adam Lambert, I don't see it happening. Adam has the Idol tour and his own album to make. Why would he jump into something where he'll constantly face (very) unfavorable comparisons? Rodgers is highly respected, sold millions of albums and HE didn't fare very well, what chance would Lambert have?

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Just returned from vacation to hear the news about Kris.

How the hell did that happen?!

I didn't have the opportunity to see the final week (still on Tivo), but
clearly, Adam was the best contestant ever to appear on American Idol.

How did Kris end up winning this?!

Re: American Idol - Season 8

as I said before, the reason I think Kris won is that Adam peaked on rock week and Kris picked up new fans every single week, peaking on the night of the finale. Adam wasn't as good as his best in the final two competition weeks, so he didn't win.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Right, whatever bump in voting fanbase Adam got when Alison got the boot wasn't enough to overcome the bump that Kris got when Danny got the boot.

Plus, it was weird to hear how high the vote totals get from week to week. Were they extending the voting time frame as the weeks wore on? How do you go from votes cast in the mid-30 millions to almost 100 million in 8 or 9 weeks?

Re: American Idol - Season 8

As was pointed out by several reviewers, Kris actually *botched* the last two songs that he sung Tuesday night. Not only was he unable to hit the high notes on "No Boundaries" he also glossed over the words right before the bridge. So this wasn't a singing competition. (Not that it ever is.) But this year we found out that it also wasn't a performance competition, since there is no question as to who provided the best performances on the show week-in-and-week out.

I will say this, though: The judges were so sure that Kris would not have a chance to win after his miserable performance on the last song, that instead of critiquing his performance, they simply congratulated him for making it this far in the competition. I bet that's the last time they make that mistake!

Re: American Idol - Season 8

I believe in the early weeks voting lasts 2 hours but is bumped to 4 towards the end.

If Kris votes came from people voting against anything, it wasn't Adam; it was the Idol machine. The entire season they blatantly made it clear that Adam (or Danny or Lil before they finally realized she wasn't anything special) was destined to be the winner. Paula flat-out said during multiple critiques that she'd see Adam and Danny in the finals (even when Danny didn't perform up to par, she'd always add something like "But I'll still see you in the finals!"). It didn't happen, but how disrespectful is that to the other 11 contestants to know that the judges see them as cannon fodder? The title's completely irrelevant anyway but obviously it means something considering how many Adam fans are up in arms (and I don't mean anyone here). I didn't end up voting last week but I was strongly considering voting for Kris just to stick it to the producers and their pimping.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

RE: the Adam Lambert/Queen rumors:

(from Queenzone.com's weekly email updates)

After Adam Lambert’s killer performance with Queen on Wednesday night’s season finale of American Idol, rumors flew that he had already been offered a job singing with the band. That’s slightly premature, according to the band’s guitarist, Brian May. “Amongst all that furor, there wasn’t really a quiet moment to talk,” May tells Rolling Stone in an e-mail interview. “But [drummer Roger Taylor] and I are definitely hoping to have a meaningful conversation with him at some point. It’s not like we, as Queen, would rush into coalescing with another singer just like that. It isn’t that easy. But I’d certainly like to work with Adam. That is one amazing instrument he has there.”

May, whose band recently ended a four-year-long partnership with singer Paul Rodgers, is comfortable with Idol as a launching point for the careers of rock singers. “You’d have to define ‘legitimate’ first,” he writes. “The long-term answer has to be that, if you have enough talent and enough will to succeed, you will get there by whatever route presents itself. Once you have scaled the castle walls, with the sword in your hand, it matters little
how you got there. I’ve not always been positive about shows like this, but there is no doubt that it offers a door to some real genuine talent along the way.”

“Both those boys are well worthy of big success,” May continues, in regard to Lambert and Idol winner Kris Allen. “So it’s pointless for someone like me to stand on the sidelines jeering. I’m confident Adam will make great use of this wonderful opportunity. I hope I’m there to see it.”

Re: American Idol - Season 8

I don't follow Queen, but I like everything May had to say.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

As near as I can figure, the producers have a phone system that can "open the spigot" to allow more calls to be logged, and that system has been online since season 7 (the first season with a blowout final vote). As the weeks go on, they open up capacity so that the vote totals rise steadily week after week. This is all happening as the viewership drops year after year. Had they had the capacity in season 5, they would have easily topped 100 million votes for the top three show.

Also, I am curious as to what the percentage of that 100 million is text votes. The finale may have been a record for text votes.

Note that the vote totals for the top three show are even more impressive -- 84 million votes for a 2 hour voting window shattered the previous mark. Which is why I think that the Gokey votes are overestimated -- if you look at the viewership drop-off for the last two shows, it looks like the Gokey voters tuned out rather than watch Adam win (or so they assumed). I think the Kris voters were just waaay more enthusiastic and organized than the Adam voters, and the underdog status made them even more enthusiastic. The text votes from the little girls were also probably a huge difference maker.

Eric, SYTYCD is a lot of fun and a better talent competition than Idol, but I don't put forth anywhere near the effort for outting together commentaries for that show (or any other show for that matter). But you should definitely check out the show -- it probably has the highest level of talent across the board out of any other TV talent contest. Plus, it appears that being pretty and having a nice bod is almost a prerequiste for dancers, so there's lot of eye-candy in the offing.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Agreed. Besides DWTS, the hottest young woman on TV are found here. Entertaining and inspiring, too.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

It's quite simple and one I stated before on how Kris won. Our local Fox station even pointed it out because they had Adam, as most did, picked as the hands down winner. Kris won for one reason only, his demographic was "Tween" girls period. They are a driving force and if you looked at our local Fox you saw all of the Tweens were voting for Kris. The Fox station even said other affiliates were reporting the same thing at their live events for Idol parties.

Kris holds no appeal to anyone out of that age group and most 16 and up, including girls, were going for Adam to win. Kris won because he was cute and the Tweens loved him. Their demographics were quite different between Adam and Kris and the ones that vote the most, the Tweens, are what made him the winner.

In record sells, I think you will see a much better sell through with Adam because the Tweens will have moved on by then or like some other boy idol.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

If it was just a tween thing, Archuleta would have won last year instead of losing by 14 million votes. Which means that Kris' appeal extended past the tween demo.

Incidentally, one of the reasons the votes keep creeping up as viewership declines has to be due to autodialers. Nigel Lythgoe confirmed last year that they had never thrown out a vote for violating the "power voting" rule, and now that the horse is out of the barn, I don't know if they really can. I haven't seen estimates, but I wouldn't be shocked if the autodialer vote was 1 out of 4 or higher. Actually, I'd be shocked if it were lower.

Ryan stated in the performance finale that only AT&T callers can text votes, so I doubt that texts were accepted from other carriers. I am not that familiar with texting, but don't they use a special 4-digit AT&T texting code for AI so that it wouldn't be possible for you to send a text vote from another carrier?

"inspiring" indeed ;-)

Re: American Idol - Season 8

I think it will be interesting to see what happens next week on the Billboard charts. This is the first time I recall both the winner AND the runner-up versions of the song being available to purchase. Will Kris' fans help him outsell Adam?

Re: American Idol - Season 8

This assumes that Kris and Archuleta and Cook and Adam hold the same exact appeal to tweens, which is unlikely. Though I don't think the difference is solely the tweens, I'd suggest it was probably the biggest factor.

According to the tweens in my family and we've got a dozen of them between my, my two brothers and my sisters kids, Kris is much better looking than Archie, cooler than Archie and plays better music.....While Cook was more regular and more mainstream than Adam. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Kris and Cook drew a larger portion of the tween segment than Archie and Adam did respectively...and that this segment catapulted Kris to victory.

There isn't a high school, middle school or elementary aged kid in my family who liked Adam. They all thought Kris should have won....Though the three college kids in my family, including my son who lives and breathes rock and roll all thought Adam was awesome and that he should have won.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

You are 100% correct on this. What some others have said about it NOT being "Tweens" is totally inaccurate. It may not have been for some past shows of AI, but as you point out, this year it was the largest determining factor in that demographic.

Like I said in my prior posts, just look at what was going on at most local Fox networks and their "Idol Parties". I don't know how many did them, but our local network had 1 a month and then 1 every week the last month of the finals. As I pointed out again which was overlooked by some, they also got votes in from other Fox networks during their "live" idol parties and ALL of the "Tweens" were going for Kris and have voted countless times for him.

Carl is correct in there is not a single "Tween" that was not voting for Kris. They all thought, as he points out using his own family as examples, Kris simply had it all for that age group. He was the cutest, coolest, most awesome guy they all had a crush on. Better than "Archie", Cook or anyone before.

Also, as you state and as did I, the demographics are totally different from Adam and Kris and most of the votes are from younger people. The adults simply don't vote, at least not to the extent the Tweens do by any means. However, I don't think this means much when it comes to record sells because adults will simply buy good music and whom they like even if they didn't vote.

Most of the Tweens also tend to move on fairly quickly to someone else if they are cuter or whatever so the span on Kris and his sucesses may be more limited in time. But if he is able to do anything close to what Miley Cyrus has done, but in a male version, then the Tween force could make him a HUGE hit. But Adam will plug away regardless with the adult crowd.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

^^^I noticed basically the same thing during the hometown visits. There were absolutely THRONGS of tween girls screaming hysterically for Kris - I likened it to the arrival of the Beatles in the US - there were crying and screaming multitudes of tweens at each of the three venues visited in Kris' hometown. Adam not so much... at all. Adam's hometown welcome looked anemic compared to Kris. Granted the hometowns were quite a bit different in demographic areas but still Kris creamed (pun intended) his hometown crowd.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

hometown crowds are always anemic for california contestants. I think there were only about 60 people at the 'finale party' in universal city walk for Katherine McPhee.

but saying this is nothing but tweens is like saying that Titanic made 595 million from teenage girl audiences and 5 million from all other audiences. it doesn't work like that. I haven't heard a single positive word about adam lambert from the midwest since he sang ring of fire. I've heard grudging respect from time to time, but mostly I heard comments about, "all he does is shriek and scream and wail and the judges say it's singing, doesn't sound like singing to me, it sounds terrible. and then they say Kris wasn't good, but he's the only one actually singing if you compare him to Adam, so the judges are just crazy and I just can't figure why they'd like the wierd things that he does. what he does isn't good, it's just weird, like Taylor Hicks, but unable to sing."

if anything, I think the over-the-top nonstop praise of Adam and the refusal to criticize anything about his performances ever is what resulted in Kris' win. it galvinized all voters, tweens (especially the archie fans burned last year) perhaps much more so than others, but blatent unfairness and favoritism definitely backfired on the judges/producers this year. If they'd wanted an underddog victory they'd have played it up Kris' status as an underddog more in top three and the finale (similar to how they worked hard to lay the groundwork in week three for the 'david v david' finale by giving syesha a really shitty and poor song choice). I don't think they ever expected Kris to make it through week to week, from his wildcard entry onward, it was clear they never had a 'story hook' to play for him that they were comfortable with, and he'd have never been 'cast' if they could have helped it.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

No offense, but how can anyone say this without having access not only to the voting figures, but an impossible-to-figure-out breakdown of voters by age? It's probably safe to assume that tweens make up the majority of voters, but to say that "not a single" one voted for Adam seems more than a bit of a stretch to me (not to mention completely inaccurate).


I envy you. I'm not in the midwest, but all I've been hearing since the top 13 began is how he's the greatest American Idol contestant of all time, he's going to still be a household name in 20 years, he's the most original thing to happen to music since Elvis (yes, someone I know literally said that without a hint of irony).


This is spot-on. I don't know if it's the main factor that led to a Kris win, but the judges and producers were so transparent in pushing Adam all season that it inevitably rubbed the many viewers who didn't see him as some sort of rock god the wrong way. If I had voted, it would've been for Kris for this reason.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Not that I hate Kris or anything, but Miley Cyrus has more charisma in either pinky toe than he has in his entire body.

And a hit TV show.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

They sure do move on quickly. My nieces and their friends had moved on from Archie last year during the AI season. They were done with him before the season ended and had moved on to some guy whose name I don't remember fully. Zach somebody who I think had something to do with Miley Cyrus.

I think Adam is going to be difficult to market actually. I think if they go the same route Daughtry did, he might be ok. Give him a full time band to front, a consistent and defined musical genre etc, etc.

But he is describing his debut album to be something rock/pop/dance/electronic in interviews and very few of todays artists can be that ecclectic and still manage to have a career....If he goes that route, I hope he hooks up with whoever produces Pink, because she's the only one I can think of that can get away with being that loosely defined.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

I'm getting flashbacks of Bush/Gore and hanging chads!

'American Idol' vote may have been flawed | TV, movie and music news | Television | EW.com

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Except the Bush/Gore vote mattered, and the AI vote doesn't. It's an interesting article just because I'm always in favor of things like this coming to light, but I really hope no one is losing any sleep over Adam coming in 2nd to Kris on AI. I think Adam himself is at peace with it, knowing the reality of the situation.

Having had a little time to get AI off the brain, what I'm left with is that we live in a country where a guy is singing (not having gay sex on stage) and all a certain segment of the population can think about is, "Aha! We got you! You're gay!!" What is this weird fascination with outing gays? I mean, I can understand folks being a little uncomfortable when a gay lifestyle is forced into their faces, but the very fact that you have to "out" someone means they've been keeping their private business private. That's not enough either? No, we must dig deep to discover any sleeper gays before they strike. Little Johnny might buy Adam's CD, listen to his sleeper gay lyrics and "turn" gay.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

Mikah, I completely agree! (And the Bush/Gore reference was meant to illustrate the way people are picking apart the results to satisfy their choice of "candidate", not to imply in ANY way that the AI outcome really "matters".)

As far as Adam goes, "coming out" in your personal life can be a difficult decision to make, based on your circumstances. Coming out in public life? Not sure I would want to be in his shoes. It shouldn't matter, but to many people, both straight AND gay, it does.

Re: American Idol - Season 8

'Idol' finalists dish on singing, strategy and sexuality - CNN.com

Transcript of Ryan Seacrest interview with Kris and Adam on CNN's Larry King Live.

Adam Lambert keen on Queen, but he won't rock only - USATODAY.com

Adam saying he'd be interested in collaborating with Queen, but doesn't really want to be their front man and doesn't want to tie himself to just singing Rock. Adam as the front man for Queen does seem a bit strange to me. He'd constantly be surrounded by folks old enough to be his father -- or grandfather.