American Idol - Season 11

Bittersweet.

I'll be watching. Wife likes it so I watch along with her.

I had to go put Junior to bed just before TentInTheWoods sang. PLEASE tell me she got through!

Yes.

Woohoo!

I still enjoy AI, flaws and all. But the comments about the last guy who auditioned just made me shake my head. Jennifer Lopez said he had a James Brown thing because of how he moved his feet. Randy called the guy new and different and fresh. My wife and I called him a Dave Matthews clone. C'mon now. The judges can't be that out of touch not to realize the guy was completely copying Dave Matthews in every possible way imaginable.

I've been pleasantly amazed by the number of golden-ticket winners they're showing from the open auditions. So much better than the parade of morons in costumes and deluded publicity-seekers who are only there to call attention to themselves.

I don't think that there are more tickets - they are just showing more. The producers are obviously going for more of that angle this time. They've cut down on the awful singers, which let's face it, has had diminishing returns for some time now.

I initially also thought that the producers were showing less 'conflict' between the judges: almost all decisions shown are unanimous.  Curiously, they then played up the dissent in Galveston by showing three girls being rejected by the two men, while J.Lo wanted to put them through.  Ironically, one of them was Miss Houston 2011, whom surely Steven Tyler would/should have voted for, yet he didn't, and I thought the choir teacher was actually quite good too.

 

Anyway, for the more die-hard fans of the show, you might might recall that for last season's AI Challenge, I stepped in to help Robert organize it.  I had hoped it would be temporary and he'd be back running it, but that's clearly not to be.  That being the case, after clearing it with Adam, I'll be taking up the flag again this year.

 

So look out for the challenge thread, which I'll be starting when we're a bit closer to the Final 12 being finalised, but in the meantime start picking your favourites!

Thanks for taking over, Yee-Ming. Shall we officially call it the "Annual RAF Memorial HTF Idol Challenge?"

That was absolutely my thought, but I didn't want to presume everybody else would be on board with the idea.

 

Is it just me, or does there seem to be less interest in Idol this year?  We haven't seen anything from Hanson yet, for instance, and a number of other regulars from past years haven't chimed in either.  

 

Anyway, now that auditions are over, can anyone tell me what date we'd expect to reach the Final 12 show?  That would be the cut-off date for participation in the RAF Memorial Idol Challenge (heh, has a nice ring to it!) and I'll need to post that in the thread.

First, I don't think Idol has any real standouts for me so far, unlike in years past where I already had some chosen to keep an eye on. Second, it tends to be the same people posting here not just for Idol, but other shows as well. This site does not come close to having good traffic and is a very low sample from just a select few. That's because there are several other sites that have HUGE amounts of traffic now for show chats such as Idol and interaction with others you know (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Third, I wouldn't mind seeing another Idol challenge since I was close last year until the whole Haley-Pia happening, but not that excited for this season right now.

We are an elite few!

You are definitely an elite few. Grew tired of this show years ago and I believe the audience numbers agree with me.

Simon tried to morph it into X-Factor, but I also see that isn't really turning out very successful. Simon has made truckloads of money, time to fade away with a little bit of dignity let.

Then again, he never had any dignity, maybe better to say fade away like the rude, crude ass he is.

For the die-hard fans, please refer to this thread for this year's "2012 American Idol HTF RAF Memorial Challenge"!

 

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/318418/the-2012-american-idol-11-htf-raf-memorial-top-ten-challenge#post_3896266

 

 

As for the start of Hollywood week, they sure milked poor Symone's little mishap for all that it was worth.  At least she made it to the next round, though.

Tonight's ep left a bad taste in my mouth.

It felt too long. Maybe it should have been two nights.

I really didn't like how they made everyone think they were going to the next round, top 40.

Seemed really cruel to let them all think they were through, then tell them, oh by the way tomorrow some of you will still get voted out even though you won't be performing tomorrow.

Felt dirty pool to me.
Edited by TonyD - 2/16/12 at 10:03pm

I agree, though there were some great performances tonight.

Also, the whole 'vocal coach from Hell' bit - can I just say that her act is not colorful or funny? It's just mean, and it's counter-productive. These kids are not professionals, and they haven't joined the army. No one is going to get better from that kind of brow-beating.

Tonight's final cuts were especially cruel IMHO. But some need to learn to accept defeat with at least a modicum of dignity... like I do each year in the HTF AI Challenge.

I am SURE it was merely a coincidence that J-Lo had to take a "phone call" while Steven and Randy were having an impromptu jam session with some of the contestants.

The extra cuts of the day 1 people was a little weird. I missed the explanation due to watching the Celtics choke again. Overall, though, I think it's good that they replaced some of the audition shows with what amounts to another round (or two?) of Hollywood Week. Seems like a lot of hassle to bus everybody to Vegas, though.

I doubt Heejun has a shot at winning this but he's my favorite contestant on this shown a long time.

He is a riot. When he apologized to pretend Scotty country singer he apologizes to his Parents.

On his way off the stage tonight hestuck his fingers through the eye holes of his prop glasses to rub his teared eyes.
Love him hope he stays in it for awhile.

Quote:

 

I agree Tony. He's got a really good sense of humor. On the other hand, I cannot stand that Phil Phillips guy. Randy again called him different and unique and it makes me nuts. The guy is a complete Dave Matthews wannabe clone in every way imaginable. The foot work when he plays, the way he holds his guitar, the faces he makes, the vocals. Is it possible they judges actually don't realize this?
 

 

damn .... haven't used the DVR's skip button so much since XFactor ... watched the 2 hours in just under a half hour total.. .

Sheesh, they're really milking the "final judgment" for as long as they can, two episodes (are both 2 hours, or is tomorrow's just 1?) to 'announce' a final 24?  They could easily have breezed through that in 1 hour.  But I guess they have to "fill" this week, so next week's format is performance/results, or even two performance shows and one result show.

 

Just a reminder, this year's challenge is up and running, at the link below, expressions of interest in participating, by way of posting your placeholder in the thread, are welcomed!  As RAF used to say, "you've got to be in it to win it!"

 

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/318418/the-2012-american-idol-11-htf-raf-memorial-top-ten-challenge#post_3896266

I knew Phil Phillips reminded me of someone!

Missed the show again due to another Celtics choke job. Sigh. . .

Randy finally said it last night....Phillips reminds him of Dave Matthews. Duh.

 

It was pretty strange how so many of the guys chose songs done by women. I don't get that.

So far, this year has been one of my least favorite years. By this time last year, I already had chosen my favorites and still remember them: Scotty, Casey, James, Jacob and Lauren. I'm not sure how much success any of the others have had besides Scotty (which has only sold a bit more than 500,000 or so records) but I would still by a record from the other guys. This year though, not even a bit of interest to this point and don't know hardly any names still.

For those that don't get EW magazine, they had a great articles a week or two ago about American Idol VS The Voice which I tend to agree with. They said that AI wants to market, thus you get only the good looking winners which also tend to be the younger contestants too. Look at what happened to Jennifer Hudson, they show turned her down essentially and the young viewers did too. But she got exposure and America as a whole that may not watch AI at all was totally different and embraced her fully. This is why I think AI has ran its course, especially the prime years and will keep losing ground. I tend to like shows more like The Voice since you can find a Susan Boyle in the group and to me AI is almost a parody of itself now.