ScarletDevilCCX

Yes, we've established that.

Wow, that was some huge movement. When I was commenting on potential perfect games, I took into account the possibility of Jonny reaching 50. I didn't expect Grace to nearly make it there! It wasn't. Not even close. Francisco was in fourth, Sophia was in 5th, and I don't remember what Jovin's score was then but Jonny was behind what it is now. (He's also behind what Grace's score is now, but I know for a fact that her score jumped up considerably as well.) Edit: Scratch that, I do remember. When the preliminary rankings went up, I posted that if CSAB took a Top 11 instead of a Top 10 like we expect them to (due to the fact that this was called a "save" rather than a "wild card"), Jonny would be in a tight battle with the projected rating of Kimmy Gabriela for the seventh spot (probably; the database lists a tie for 11th place in the Top 20, between Cyniah and Just Sam. If Cyniah were to get that 11th spot, it's a moot point because she gets eliminated; if it's Just Sam, her real ranking is easily safe.) So yes, he was absolutely...oh, wait, Jovin's the other real Top 11 contestant not in the CSAB Top Ten, along with Sam and Louis. Ah, well, I'm still fairly certain he was in seventh. ... Wait... if Jonny at 48 was in a dogfight for the seventh spot...lemme just check some past CSABs... YES! YES! Contestants who went 1 and done with a 53 had a 48 as their first projected rating, and that seems pretty solid; a two-and-out with a 52.5 average got a 47 for their first. In fact, let me just make sure there's wiggle room... Done. Season 8, a contestant with a 54 in their lone real performance advanced and was given a 48 as their first projected rating. Which means Grace is still alive! She edges out Kimmy Gabriela's projected rating by one point for the seventh slot. (Assuming a Top 10 rather than a Top 11, that is, or alternatively a Top 11 where Cyniah's 49 was fractionally better than Just Sam's 49.) I'm so happy, my country queen is here to stay.

Okay, point taken. For what it's worth, he'd have made a "worthy" winner in the current era, where contestants are outright encouraged to stay in a narrow band and never venture outside their comfort zones. Post-Idol, I'm a big P² fan, because I like his style of music and he sounds good singing it. On the show itself, I frequently found myself not being a big fan, because imo he wasn't a very versatile artist and Season 11 wasn't quite at the point where the themes were super open-ended.

Mother's Day is a tough theme to sort out what they should do. It's got to be something that they feel is right for their relationships with their mothers. So I'm going to ignore that theme and try to come up with a Disney song for each of them. I'm also going to choose a song for all eleven of them, even though only seven will actually get their performances aired. One of the defining characteristics of Jovin that they've been trying to push is that he is very Louisianan, so I instinctively looked to the Princess and the Frog soundtrack for inspiration. Sure enough, there's a song called "Down in New Orleans" that is such a perfect fit that it seems almost too predictable. Grace is a tough one to choose for in theory, because there isn't much country music in the Disney songbook...but then again, a lot of the songs Grace has sung weren't originally country songs. So I'm actually going to go to the same soundtrack that another country female went to for this theme, but not the same song: I suggest "Just Around the Riverbend" from Pocahontas. Arthur has been covering a lot of classics, so he probably gets that "quirky older pick" niche that our past two champions filled. But when I looked at the era that their song choices came from, I came up empty. So rather than try to pick something more recent, I went older. It's definitely not a conventional pick, but I'm going with "Ichabod Crane" from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Okay, are there any other tricky ones? Anyone at all that should theoretically have a rough time with this theme? No? Well okay then. Let's go to Julia next; she's perhaps a little more constrained than the other girls because the selection for altos probably isn't as wide as for sopranos. Still, while I hate suggesting songs that have already been done on Idol before, I have to begrudgingly suggest "Reflection" from Mulan. It's a solid pick and it should work in her vocal range. Let's see, what's a good soulful song for Just Sam to sing? Hmmm, maybe? Yeah, me too. So, yeah, forget that. "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. The "not something we've heard each of the last two years" bug also bites Dillon, who probably would want to go with "You've Got A Friend In Me". So instead I'm going to go to the same soundtrack I always end up suggesting for a male singer for this theme, but not the same song that I suggested for Cade two years ago and Wade last year. My pick is "Two Worlds" from Tarzan. Louis and Francisco both have tough assignments from me, because they're our "princes" and the selection for that is, well, there are some songs that have been done before. Pretty damn well, at that. Francisco gets the plum assignment of "A Whole New World", which means literally trying to measure up with a WNTS showstopper, albeit one from 2003. Louis doesn't have it much easier with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" Still, I have faith that they can pull through. Let's see, that's eight. I know two of the ones I haven't covered yet, so who am I missing...oh, right, Jonny! Huh, that's actually a tough call. What exactly fits into his wheelhouse? What even is his wheelhouse? I'm not saying that because I don't think he's had good performances; I'm saying that because I haven't figured out what his musical identity is. From his audition and his "This Is Me" piece, I feel like it might actually be kind of hip-hop. Which is pretty much a dead end for Disney. So I guess he'll have to go the ballad route again. Maybe "Go The Distance" from Hercules? And that just leaves our two poppy females, Sophia and Makayla. It's almost obligatory that someone will sing something from the most recent Disney movie, which in this case means Frozen II. Makayla's more of the belter, so "Show Yourself" goes to her. And as for Sophia...I don't know why, but I feel like I want her to go down the Frozen path as well? But not one of Elsa's songs; that's a bit outside her wheelhouse. Sophia's no belter, but she does have "quirky" on lockdown. "For the First Time in Forever" or "Love Is an Open Door", songs sung primarily by Anna, seem right up her alley. Wow, we actually did make some of the same song suggestions, but not once did we suggest them for the same person! lmao

I mean, based solely on Top 20 performances, you're not wrong. Based on literally every round before that, no. Faith didn't even deserve a golden ticket; Nick at least did, but didn't have a single good performance in Hollywood/Hawaii.

A normal length season? On ABC? I feel insulted. The last normal length season was S14.

No they won't. They'll cut from 7 to 4, then they'll have another mid-episode cut in the finale like they did last year.

Honestly, absolutely nowhere that you could rank Arthur would shock me, because he dramatically rearranged a classic song. It's the type of performance that I'd inherently expect there to be a wide variance of opinions on it. Grace, on the other hand...what were you listening to? When a contestant sings a song that's been done on the show before, it's only natural to compare their performances to those past performances. I did exactly that, and ruled Grace vs. Katharine to be a push, at least on the pure singing (Kat obviously got the advantage of the Idol staging). But even without having that comparison to make, Grace got my love on that song on its own merits--which is not an easy task, because I have a nostalgia filter on certain ballads that's very tough to break, namely songs that my mother sang to me as lullabies when I was little. Over the Rainbow is one of them. So is Somewhere, and I judged Jeremiah very harshly on that song last year; it hit the 90s on WNTS anyway. Other songs that meet this that have been performed on the show at least once include, but are not limited to, My Funny Valentine, Summertime, and Wind Beneath My Wings. And that last one is particularly notable, because I've never deemed a performance of it on this show to meet my standards, not even when performed by the literal reason I joined Twitter. (Yes, really. Back when the official American Idol website had its own forums, I was the one who started the topic for Skylar Laine's fan club. Joined Twitter to help spread the hype. Absolutely adore her, but I hate that Wind Beneath My Wings ended up as her highest-rated performance on WNTS because I honestly didn't think it was that good. Though I recognize that she was a bit too country to ever get the type of unanimous support needed to get a truly high rating). I bring all this up to underscore my point, that Over the Rainbow is not a song that I'd throw out a high rating on lightly. Any little flaw in one of those songs, I will tear apart. Grace didn't have any. I feel like, if anything, I underrated her; yes, I used Kat's WNTS score from S5 to come up with a number, but like I said...Jeremiah exceeded that number on Somewhere. Which is, of course, laughable.

Ah, must have missed that. Good, I'm happy with that. I was about to write a follow-up post looking at it from the other direction, from how far from the end we were. Which still has some merit because even without this season counting for data, these shortened seasons have been wreaking havoc. Through the first 14 seasons, the closest anyone got to a full-season perfect game was two episodes away, which is where Elliott, Adam, and Candice lost theirs. Seasons 15-17 each had at least one person with a perfect game intact at that point, although half of them had no chance at getting any closer because they'd just been eliminated (Jurnee/Jeremiah). And then this season alone, if it counted, would have added 4 more to that list, maybe 5 if Jonny's performance, a 48 on the overnights, is able to break 50.

On another note, it feels like perfect games are becoming devalued by this format--has felt that way since the start of the ABC era, but it's even more pronounced this year, when I believe that the winner will only have 7 rated performances--and there's at least a possibility that someone will finish with a perfect game without making the finale; 4 contestants still have them active with a fifth one in striking distance if the midweek adjustments for this week bring him up a couple of points. Now, granted, three of the six perfect games already in the books had fewer than 7 rated performances, but... By my count, 20 Idols lost their perfect game on their 8th performance or later. More than triple the number who actually left with a perfect game intact. Six more lost it on their seventh performance, which is I guess also notable because we're still just assuming that it's 3 performances apiece for the finale and also because last year they had the third round of the finale after eliminating the 3rd place finisher. At 7 performances, this is by far the shortest season; Season 16 is next at 11, then Season 1 with 13, Season 17 with 14, Season 15 with 15, and Season 8 with 16 (by number of performances given by the winner.) Of those 20 who lost it in their 8th performance or later, only 6 still had it after 11: Clay, Elliott, Melinda, Adam, Candice, and Caleb J. Of those, only Elliott, Candice, and Caleb still had it after 13, and only Candice still had it after 15 (she lost hers on her 18th performance).

Okay, so they are going to do live voting for the finale at least. I was wondering about that, since so fast they've otherwise gone back to the old ways of handling voting--hell, they didn't even open the phone lines until the end of the show, which is entirely at odds with the direction they've taken this franchise. Though it's still going to be awfully confusing with 7 people entering the finale not knowing whether they're in it or not.

Who, Phillip? I feel like this is a mischaracterization. Season 11's cast was musically diverse, same as the others, and yet when you look at the sales numbers, it's an absolute void.

The clear winners of the night: 1. Grace Leer 2. Makayla Phillips Really strong as well: 3t. Jovin Webb 3t. Just Sam Also good, but not quite as good: 5. Sophia James 6. Julia Gargano 7. Arthur Gunn 8. Louis Knight 9. Francisco Martin Yeah let's be honest even the worst performances of the night were not bad: 10. Jonny West 11. Dillon James Let's put it this way: For me, the #11 performance from this show, with only 11 contestants, was roughly on par with the #11 performance from last week's show with 20.

The weird thing is, I can almost understand it. While I personally felt it was gorgeous, she had a lot of things working against her. First off, she sang a song that had already been sung on Idol multiple times, and sung well. Inviting comparisons to past contestants is usually a bad idea, and Kat McPhee absolutely knocked that song out of the park. This is, amazingly enough, the first time since then that anyone covered the song in the original Judy Garland arrangement in a performance show since then; the only other cover more recent than Kat's was Jason Castro doing the Israel Kamakawio'ole version. Second, a surprisingly high number of people actually listen to what the judges have to say, even though they've proven to be fairly useless. When they're handing out over-the-top praise to so many contestants, anything less than that seems like a condemnation. And that's exactly what Grace got from Lionel--basically, "stay in your lane". I'm not really sure what this year's "agenda" is, other than continuing to push Alejandro and Gabby, but I know that they're not consistent in the "stay in your lane" mentality. They didn't criticize Jonny for doing "What A Wonderful World" last week, and they certainly didn't try very hard to push Laci Kaye back into the country box that they'd put her in last year (though that was probably for the best; in my opinion, she was much better when they were pretending that she'd countrified a song from another genre than when she actually sang country.) I'm sure that the real diehards, the ones who remember all the past performances and not just the especially famous/infamous ones, probably lament this whole mentality, because Idol used to force contestants to be adept at covering everything, but it's not really a bad thing. Lionel always preaches "musical identity", and he's not wrong; trying to please everyone might be good for winning the show but it's not going to sell records.

Fair point. But it definitely does feel like he got lucky, because honestly he was nowhere near the most deserving of the win in that absolutely stacked field, and yet he not only won, but avoided the Taylor Hicks curse and became the most successful contestant from his season.

1. Grace Leer 2. Makayla Phillips 3. Francisco Martin 4. Just Sam 5. Jovin Webb 6. Sophia James 7. Arthur Gunn 8. Julia Gargano 9. Dillon James 10. Louis Knight 11. Jonny West Top 3 are the ones I most want to win, #4 winning it all would be fine too. 5-7 are decent but not really ones I'd be okay with winning. I'd say that based on all performances this season, Louis could actually be as high as #7, but I have to consider trajectory; Louis started as one of my favorites and has declined precipitously, while Julia just gave probably her best performance of the season. Jonny hasn't been good since his audition, and Dillon's backstory is the only thing keeping him from being completely forgettable.

Bravo. I thought Julia was much improved this week, but any chance she had of actually getting a vote from me went up in smoke the moment the judges opened their mouths. I don't even remember if it was Luke or Lionel that gave her the overpraise, but it's like, no. Stop. She was good, but she was far from outstanding. Wasn't even the best performance of the night, much less the last three seasons, which I assume is the only "Idol history" they care about.

New York State of Mind - Kimberley Locke, Erika Van Pelt, Bryan Tadeo, Julia Gargano Over the Rainbow - Kimberley Locke, Katharine McPhee, Jason Castro, Grace Leer Faithfully - Kristy Lee Cook, Hollie Cavanagh, Caleb Johnson, Jonny West Take Me Home, Country Roads - Taylor Hicks, Arthur Gunn Yesterday - Syesha Mercado, Angie Miller, Clark Beckham, Dillon James The House That Built Me - Laci Kaye Booth, Makayla Phillips

Yeah, but Julia wasn't showcasing that amazing talent in Top 20. At all. (I'm not going to harp on it too much, though, because as mad as I am that she survived Top 20, I thought she was much better this week! I mainly chalk it up to song choice; I feel like Human was a horrible song for her voice, but New York State of Mind was a much better fit.)

Also, voted.

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.

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.