ScarletDevilCCX

Also, voted. 

On 4/22/2020 at 11:36 AM, 1234567890 said:

I'm looking at the past winners and I see two tragic winners and 3 tragic runner-ups.

I mean, Season 15 was nothing but tragic, so you can't hold that against them.

Still I agree on the prevalence of tragic winners. I guess this is where all the tonedeaf people who managed to get the worst freaking performance in Idol History a 77 were.

No, I'm not exaggerating. I honestly believe (and yes I've attempted to listen to it more recently to see if my opinion on it has changed, and, well, key word "attempted"--it was too painful) that Colton's performance of Piano Man is at least 80 points too high. I mean, I might be exaggerating when I say "worst in history" because the early seasons had a lot of train wreck auditioners, but certainly the worst in a performance round. 

Also, let's see what our CSAB will look like.

Much to my surprise, 8 of the CSAB top 10 are actually in the Top 11. Since it was called a "save" despite the fact that Top 20 is usually a semifinal, I have to assume that they won't take an 11th contestant as a wild card. So Louis, Jovin, and Sam are out and Lauren and Kimmy are in. And since this will only be the first projected rating, they should both make Top 7, as Dillon, Grace, and Arthur get knocked out.

...Yeah I already hate this. I'm praying they do make it a Top 11, because that appears to mean Just Sam makes it, and she'd at least be able to knock Jonny out this episode. Can't do anything about the awful ratings from Top 20.

...Actually it'd be pretty close between Jonny's real rating and Kimmy's projected rating. 

10 hours ago, kamil24 said:

I didn't realize Grace was so disliked this week. I didn't even like her before this but it was one of the best of the night for me.

Same. She was easily the performance of the night and it wasn't even close. 

Well, no, it wasn't close until after the judges used their save. Makayla got close, but that's about it. 

Make it 7 for 7. Barely. It feels weird, though, because last week, Arthur was considered comfortably one of the better performances imo, and despite doing better, he's not standing out this time. 

I thought it was good. I'm now 6-for-6 in scoring the Idols higher than I did last week. 

There's a bottle of sake in our house that needs getting rid of because we meant to buy plum wine, and one of the drink suggestions on the bottle is to make a screwdriver out of it, so there we go. Well, just when you thought there were no left sharks, er, sharks left for American Idol to jump, the rumor mill says that the Top 10 will be made a Top 11 via use of the save. I mean, yes, technically the FOX era did that twice, but both times were in seasons where they were already down to 11 finalists at the time! If this week is considered a valid time to use the judges' "one and only save", rather than merely making wild card selections (yes, plural; I still believe that if we don't go down to 10, it's because there are wild cards and we'll actually be getting 12 or 13 contestants), then it can only be logically concluded that last week's episode was, in fact, part of the Finals, not the Semifinals. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

We get a video of Season 11 winner Phillip Phillips performing his hit song, "Home", a couple days before last week's show. And "Home" is the theme of tonight's show. This time Katy Perry is dressed as toilet paper; my mom suggests these ridiculous costumes might also serve to hide her pregnancy belly, though I don't know why since we all know she's pregnant. Since everyone already had their performance, I'm sure we'll see them all. Ryan announces that, yes, the save is available this week--and only this week; if they choose not to use it now, it's gone for good. Our first member of the top ten is Louis Knight. He seems quite broken up, and maybe a little hoarse. Oh, the TP costume is gone. Everyone also got a video session with in-house mentor Bobby Bones. Louis has also been working on his physique; being told he could be a heartthrob really got in his head. He delivered pizzas to the hospital workers a few days ago. He's singing Coldplay's "In My Place", and it's a lot better than last week; I give it a 69. Luke is a bit lukewarm on it, no pun intended. Wait, did Ryan just say that voting won't be opening until the end of the show? ...He did! The voting period has been restored to its rightful place! ...This sake screwdriver is not great.

The next member of our Top 11, er, 10, is Julia Gargano. This would sting no matter how many people we were getting down to, but getting down from 20 to 10 in a single week, you really hate bad decisions. Her video piece shows her sense of humor, and it's as bad as her performance of Human last week. She does Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind", and while she's no Kimberley Locke, or even Erika Van Pelt, she's much better than she was last week. We'll call it a 64...which, uh, kind of forces Louis all the way down to a 59. Having a performance from a previous season to anchor my rankings generally depresses them all across the board, unless I get to base it off a performance that I found to be wildly overrated. Maybe I should just try to keep them consistent to myself? Yeah, I feel like that's better. Louis's score stays with what I called it before and Julia gets a 74, but with a note that I liked it less than EVP's 66-rated performance from Season 11

Next week is Mother's Day/Disney theme. And we get Katy Perry and Charlie Puth talking about things, which involves more promotion of Gabby Barrett. Jovin Webb is the third member of our top 10. He's singing "Voodoo" by Allen Stone. And we're three for three on "marked improvements", which is pretty nice because unlike the first two, I liked Jovin last week! I'll give it an 81. Katy said it made her feel like she was at a bar in NOLA having a dirty martini, two things she can't do right now. Ryan gives an ad for the auditions. We're going to commercial again...I'm thinking maybe we're not going to get to hear all 20 performances? Mom always hated how they made eliminated contestants sing, even back when there were results shows, but these performances are recorded a couple of days in advance so that wouldn't really be an issue here.

Grace Leer is the fourth member of the Top 10. She's back in her hometown of Danville, CA, for the shelter in place after having moved to Nashville. She's singing "Over the Rainbow". Uh...what do I do when the previous season performances were showstoppers to begin with? Oh, right, rate them for their going point for point. 90. That was every bit as good as Kat McPhee.

America's two for two at putting absolutely rancid performances through to the Top 10 as Jonny West is going through, which probably means we'll be five for five in me scoring people higher than last week, if only because there's not much room for Jonny to go lower. He's singing "Faithfully" by Journey. It was...good? I can't use "the previous performances" to rate it since I missed S13 and, uh...I actually preferred KLC's 40 over Hollie's 57. Still, I'll use the latter as my gauge, since I think that it seems accurate while KLC's seems underrated, and call this a 60. It was better than Hollie's, but still the weakest performance tonight.

Luke's talking to Darius Rucker. Up sixth is Sophia James. She, too, returned to her childhood home for the quarantine. She says that she's more nervous to sing from home because she and her family also have to be the tech crew. She's singing "In My Room" by the Beach Boys and she makes it her own. Her voice cracks a bit, but she makes up for it with some impressive glory notes; I give it a 76, which means we're 6 for 6 on improvements. I nearly lost my whole topic, though, so I'm submitting it now and editing.

Arthur Gunn is the seventh member of our Top 10, and he's singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver. Man the Freshness Factor for this episode is low. Oh, but he's doing a reggae version! A little strange for a song about West Virginia, but whatever, it's good. 72. Am I just in a better mood than I was last week? Because it seems crazy to think that everybody improved this week. Wait, no it isn't; last week's episode sucked.

Ryan announces that the finale is May 17. This season is just plain stupid; we're cutting down to 7 this week, and I guess from there it's down to 3? Or are we having a 4-person finale this year? Speaking of "just", Just Sam is our eighth member of the Top 10. She said she was staying in California to avoid risking getting her Grandma sick. She's singing "Grandma's Hands" by Bill Withers, and we saw the clip of when Lionel asked her if she's ever felt safe. And whoa! No second-guessing myself on this one; she kicked it up a notch! I'll have to say...81; I can't decide whether I like her or Jovin more.

Lionel Richie is chatting with Stevie Wonder on the subject of songwriting. Our ninth member of the top ten is Dillon James. Ryan gives us the vote total; over 36 million. Dillon's singing "Yesterday" by the Beatles, and, uh...I may have been overrating everyone slightly. Or alternatively, I was underrating everyone last week. Because I'm left at a crossroads: I don't think it was that much weaker than Jonny, if at all, but it wasn't as good as last week! Well, I'll call it a 58 anyway, because the anchoring previous season performance for my previous low was a 57 and this is better than that, but I do like this less than the one I rated 56 last week.

Ryan pretends there's suspense as to who the last member of the Top Ten is, but we all know that it's going to be Francisco Martin and it is. He's definitely a good choice, but we were already screwed when Julia and Jonny (and as much as I hate to say it, Louis) made the top 10 (My top ten for last week alone also didn't include Just Sam or Dillon, but Dillon was #11 and Sam is certainly an acceptable choice; the middle of the pack was very tight). Francisco's singing "Falling Like the Stars" by James Arthur. It's...the first one where I can concretely say that, no, it wasn't as good. 67, though, is the right place to slot it in. Katy's hormonal and crying. We still have over 10 minutes left in the show, so we know full well there will be an 11th member of the "Top Ten". They couldn't even really pretend with this format; they only have enough time for people still in the competition to sing and the eliminations came based on a previous night's performances. It's basically Season 14's elimination format, except with multiple eliminations.

They have decided to use the wild card save, and for the first time in the ABC era, the wild card is white; Makayla Phillips is in the Top 11! Her father is a first responder. She's singing "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. Bobby asks her why she's singing a different genre. She said she wanted to show a different side of her. It works! 89 is the score; just a touch behind Grace for best of the night.

1 minute ago, jjeem said:

Why are they more supportive of Alenjandro than Laine. Any particlar reason for this?

Marketability. They've also been pushing Gabby while pretty much ignoring both of the two who beat her. 

So far I'm 5 for 5 in rating tonight's performances as better than last week's (Grace only barely, because she was really good last week too).

Of course, that's also because I only agree with 2 of these 5 selections. 

On 4/30/2020 at 2:45 PM, hayden98 said:

As much as I like Julia, I kind of thought her performance this past week was horrendous.

Oh, it was totally horrendous, and I knew it would be the moment the song choice was announced. That song just isn't right for her voice, and she's not enough of a belter to get away with having to sing it in a different key. 

Pretty good analysis. I agree completely that song choice was a huge bugaboo...but I think I disagree with you on who failed it. Namely, Jonny and Julia. Jonny chose a song that is nowhere near his musical identity, and I feel like he didn't really sing it that well. And then there's Julia...I called "disaster" as soon as I heard the song title announced, because that song just does not work with her voice. She's a contestant that impressed me early, but she's disappointed quite frequently and I think a lot of her problems come down to her trying to hit notes that she just can't hit. 

Yeah, I disagreed with you heavily. I agree that what Aliana was doing was "wrong for Idol", but it was a damn good performance. But seriously, seeing what you had to say about Grace and then about Julia...really? Grace sang circles around Julia. Honestly, just about everyone did, even Franklin (whose performance I found to be rather bizarre). Not DeWayne, though, and not Jonny. I'm not really sure what Jonny was going for, but more importantly, I'm not sure why he was going for it. This was a huge cutdown, and he's going way out of his lane on an open theme. And it didn't work imo.

4 hours ago, m1key said:

NOOOO LAUREN WAS ROBBEDT. 

Oh holy crap didn't even notice her absence. That's probably a shame; I didn't like her last week but that's to be expected when a contestant is covering Jessie J and I'm pretty sure that my personal tastes aside, it was a good performance.

Jonny and Julia did not give good performances. I can't remember Jonny giving a good performance since his audition, which is still more recent than Julia's last good performance.

But I highly doubt that they'll use a "save" at this point. "Wild Cards", maybe. But there'd be more than one of those.

This is the semifinals. There are no saves. 

Oof. That's painful.

Granted, my top 10 on that night would've had some not-so-great contestants advancing and this sends all three of them home. But Jovin and Cyniah go home while Jonny and Julia get to stay? These rankings are awful! 

1 hour ago, kenboy123 said:

I'm thrown for a loop...some of my the people that I didn't think I like, I did actually like and some people I don't like, but I like today...

 

Rankings to come...

Same, same. I don't know if it was because I had such low expectations for him, but Nick really blew me away, and the same goes for Aliana.

Meanwhile, Jonny was nothing short of rancid tonight. Why is he going so far out of his lane on a night where half the contestants are getting cut?

With a Little Help From My Friends - Casey Abrams, Kree Harrison, Wade Cota, Jovin Webb

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Rayvon Owen, Dalton Rapattoni, Franklin Boone

Run to You - Angela Peel, Jasmine Trias, Mara Justine, Aliana Jester

Hey There Delilah - Ju’Not Joyner, Sam Woolf, Dalton Rapattoni, Nick Merico

Mamma Knows Best - Sarina-Joi Crowe, Stephany Negrete, Lauren Spencer-Smith

Warrior - Briana Oakley, Cyniah Elise

Teenage Dream - Nick Fradiani, Francisco Martin

Human - Jessica Meuse, JAX, Julia Gargano

Cry - Mandisa, Grace Leer

I Believe - Diana DeGarmo, Fantasia, LaKisha Jones, Syesha Mercado, Joshua Ledet, Curtis Finch, Jr., Just Sam

What a Wonderful World - George Huff, Anwar Robinson, Chris Daughtry, Jonny West

On 4/22/2020 at 2:29 AM, kenboy123 said:

I don't completely agree with NGH....

 

Cannon Fodders:

 

Faith Becnel - there is basically no reason for her to be here, she literally has scrapped by every single round

 

Aliana Jester - she's very underwhelming, verging on forgettable, she's also way too shy and quiet

 

Dewayne Crocker Jr. - WHO IS THIS AGAIN???

 

Nick Merico - in a season with a lot of "heartthrobs", he's clearly the worst one in that catergory...very average performances with nothing stand up about them

 

Franklin Boone - the judges seem to like him, but he's another one I think will have a connection problem as I forget he is the second he walks off the stage...

 

 

Underdogs:

 

Lauren Spencer Smith - SHE'S CANADIAN....that's all you need to know...won't get votes

 

Jovin Webb - this is someone that I think the judges like very much and I think can a judges' save should there is one this year...as a contestant, he's also another contestant that I have quickly forgetten about after he walks off the stage...

 

Cyniah Elise - someone that the producers are sorta pushing...however, some people have mentioned that she isn't the most likable of contestants, so... I don't see her getting votes ...

 

Kimmy Gabriella - this is someone I think the producers were sorta pushing earlier in the season, featuring her in commercials and promos and such...so, I wouldn't be surprised if she gets a judges/producers choice if that is a thing this year...

 

Sophia Wackerman - she has potential to get to the next tier and she seems to have some fans, but in a battle vs Julia, she clearly loses in my opinion...her last performance was a spastic mess though...

 

 

Dark Horses:

 

Olivia Ximines - while her voice is very green and clearly young, she knows how to perform and if she can entertain the audience (I'm sure she can find a way to dance at home), then I think she can get further than initially thought ...

 

Louis Knight - Louis will end up either going very deep or dropping out immediately ...his last few performances were very meh and underwhelming...but he has a story, he's cute and the judges are pushing him further no matter how good or bad his performances are...which is always a good sign for him...if he does give a bad performance, he'll end up like Jonny Brenns or Garrett Jacobs

 

Dillon James - while on paper I think he can do well, i think having to compete with a lot of male that can fill the "heartthrob" slot will be to his detriment...Francis and Louis will probably hog up most of those votes and Arthur will probably get a few of those too (even though he's not really a heartthrob)...on the plus side, he probably has one of the most interesting voices of the bunch...

 

Julia Gargano - between her and Sophia, I think she is clearly the better of the two female singer-songwriters...I also think she has a more versatile voice than Sophia...however, I'm not sure how the voting will go as I'm not really seeing as much love for her as some of the people above her....

 

Makayla Phillips - out of all the female power singers, she is the best...she has pretty much everything a pop star has...she can sing, she's young, she has the look too...my one main worry is vote splitting between her and some of these other people...However, I think she is quite popular, especially with her time on America's Got Talent... 

 

 

Frontrunners:

 

Jonny West - the show has certainly done a lot to put him in the spotlight and while for me, the Margie and Jonny story was verging on annoying...a lot of viewers love the lovey dovey stuff ...performance wise, I think he has a quality in his voice that is pretty unique tone wise and a lot of people will like it even though I don't find it completely pleasing to my ears...

 

Grace Leer - she got some extra attention with the vote and country is ALWAYS powerful in singing shows...so, she's going to do very well here, her voice is interesting and she's probably the only real country singer in the Top 20 (i don't really think Dillon is real country) which is going to be a huge benefit

 

Samantha Diaz - i mean HOW CAN YOU NOT ROOT FOR SAMANTHA???...she just has the story that makes you want to root for her and also a voice that makes you feel things even though it's not the most "perfect"...she has gotten a lot of screen time, but for good reason and I predict she is going to go very far because she is someone that almost everyone will be rooting for even if she is not their #1 favorite...

 

Arthur Gunn - choosing between Arthur and Francisco was hard...but I'm controversially put Arthur at #2...he has a HUGGGGEEEE fanbase, but how much of the fanbase is actually Americans that can or will vote????...the annoying behaviour of his fanbase to some people might also backfire on him

 

Francisco Martin - I'm putting Francisco at #1 because he also has the story that also makes people want to root for him, but at top of that...he also is the type of artist that people tend to vote for, plus he's good looking...however, an Asian hasn't won American Idol yet, so...could it Arthur or Francisco actually break that pattern???...or will someone else surprisingly win...also, not having to perform live on a stage will help him since he won't have to deal with huge nerves...

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I think I agree with these ratings more. You've got a good grasp on this.

One thing I'd like to say, though: I do feel like Arthur is the favorite, despite being non-white, because the ABC era has skewed very old classic. Per WNTS, only one winner in the FOX era had an average song age in the 30s: Taylor Hicks, at 32.9 years. Maddie broke that record with an average song age of 33.6 (they got a little lazy with the coding, so all contestants in the ABC era have a listed average song age one year younger than they actually had due to the one-year hiatus), and then Laine smashed that at 44.8--which due to the time difference between the seasons, meant he still had the second-oldest music, a mere 1.1 years younger than Taylor's offerings while competing 13 years later. Arthur performs that same style of music. So while I like him, I'm not sure if I really want him to win. I don't think he'd be the best winner.

I think the problem is, the people watching this show and voting aren't the ones who they're actually trying to sell records to. We can hope that the large existing online fanbases for some of these contestants will be motivated to vote for their favorites, because the television audience isn't really meeting up with what's getting on the radio.

Sign me up.

1 minute ago, m1key said:

Im a bit bummed no performances hit 70. I think there were a few that definitely deserved at least that. Hopefully when we get finalized ratings later this week the scores look a bit better.

I'm not surprised. I usually end up being a very generous scorer, but I didn't put a single performance in the 90s tonight, which is a rarity.

The #1 was correct, and I'll even cut them some slack on the #2 because I recognize that it was probably fairly good but it's just not my thing. After that...ugh. Laughable. That Jonny got a decent score is disappointing but oddly unsurprising. That Julia managed to get ahead of him is ridiculous. And I feel like preconceptions were definitely coloring the reviews even more than normal, because Run to You's song average is lower than what its low had been entering the night and I absolutely refuse to believe that Aliana was that much worse than all previous renditions. I remember that it wasn't worse than the last one.

Just Sam looking at easily the best rating on "I Believe" since Fantasia and Diana gave it its world premiere. 

Oh, right, and voted.

10 hours ago, mytake1 said:

Postponing the season to the Fall wasn't realistic.  The experts are saying that it will take a good year before things are normalized.  It would have left the show and contestants dangling.

I also disagree about Dillon James.  He has a sob story and those never win.  Neither does anyone from CA.  Also, the label does not need another Country winner.

Arthur Gunn not only has the fan base, but he comes from the heartland of the Country and almost all Idol winners are from the Mid West or South. 

Not only that, but he sang a lot more oldies, which puts him in the same line as Maddie and Laine. For whatever reason, those throwback singers have been thriving in the ABC era, and that vastly favors Arthur.

Dang, most of the good ones are taken. Ah, well, let's go with Dillon James and Arthur Gunn.

So, here are my thoughts.

Going into tonight, Aliana and Nick were the two contestants I thought belonged here the least, though Faith wasn't much above them--ironically, it was her "unseen performances" on the This Is Me that elevated her above them. Her best performances were the ones we never would've gotten to see if she hadn't made the Top 20! But tonight, Faith was solid and Aliana and Nick were outright good. I still didn't give Aliana that many votes because, yes, she did Whitney justice, but how is that relevant to today's music scene?

Francisco was the best of the night. Grace, Makayla, and Cyniah were also really good, along with the two I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Sophia lagged a bit behind them, but was still comfortably in 7th place for the night.

I'd say there were possibly as many as seven contestants that outright blew it on song choice. It's been well documented on WNTS that "I Believe" just doesn't work unless you're Fantasia Barrino, and I'm not sure if there's anyone who can properly cover Billie Eilish; she's just so unique. I also thought that Franklin's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was just plain weird, and honestly Julia and Jonny were just completely singing the wrong songs for their voices. I'm guessing maybe Jonny was going for the Israel Kamikawa'ole version? He missed that, too; I think even for that, he's too much of a tenor. But even that was a better fit than Julia's alto trying to do "Human". It's just not a good song for her. What were the other ones I thought weren't good? Ah, right, Louis and DeWayne. DeWayne's song choice probably wasn't great either, but I think their problem was just not singing that well.

In It To Win It:

1. Francisco Martin

2. Nick Merico

3. Grace Leer

4. Cyniah Elise

5. Aliana Jester

6. Makayla Phillips

Solid, but a step behind:

7. Sophia James

8. Arthur Gunn

The muddled middle:

9. Faith Becnel

10. Jovin Webb

11. Dillon James

12. Kimmy Gabriela

13. Lauren Spencer-Smith

14. Just Sam

15. DeWayne Crocker Jr.

Not so good:

16. Louis Knight

17. Olivia Ximines

18. Franklin Boone

Can't spell "sing" without S-I-N:

19. Jonny West

20. Julia Gargano