American Idol 2013

[buzzenator]

^ Tom, you nailed it. The show was almost unwatchable...Mrs. Buzz asked afterward, "so why are we watching it?"

We've hated the group round from the get go...needless soap opera drama and intentional abuse of the contestants, for what?

They make these kids travel to LA for the next round. Then line up 8-12 on stage, give them 30 seconds to perform and cut the group in half. They had more time performing during the first audition than Hollywood. Then onto the group round, in order to traumatize the 'weakest of the herd'...time to end this madness.

Last night's show is exactly why people talk about Idol being irrelevant. What did that show have to do with finding the best new voice in America?

[Himm2]

I think these grueling Hollywood rounds aren't so much to find the best voice...it's an endurance test to see who can stand up to the rigors of an intense workload/schedule and who can work as a team. They gotta do something to knock the number down to 40 contestants and see who can stand up to the pressures. It is the least enjoyable watching experience but I think it's a necessary step in the process.

Haley survived with flying colors and proved she had what it takes to fend off all obstacles.

[Miguel]

Some people think they are stacking the deck against the male contestants this year in the hopes of crowning a female winner. I think there might be something to that.

[danzeb]

I think these grueling Hollywood rounds aren't so much to find the best voice...it's an endurance test to see who can stand up to the rigors of an intense workload/schedule and who can work as a team. They gotta do something to knock the number down to 40 contestants and see who can stand up to the pressures. It is the least enjoyable watching experience but I think it's a necessary step in the process.

Haley survived with flying colors and proved she had what it takes to fend off all obstacles.

Exactly.

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Some people think they are stacking the deck against the male contestants this year in the hopes of crowning a female winner. I think there might be something to that.

It's a business and the most successful of its type. What they think will keep viewership up is what's important. Good singers, goofy singers and drama is what gets the ratings. I have no idea why they would care if the winner was male or female.

[Tom22]

I think these grueling Hollywood rounds aren't so much to find the best voice...it's an endurance test to see who can stand up to the rigors of an intense workload/schedule and who can work as a team. They gotta do something to knock the number down to 40 contestants and see who can stand up to the pressures. It is the least enjoyable watching experience but I think it's a necessary step in the process.

Haley survived with flying colors and proved she had what it takes to fend off all obstacles.

I agree with you about their purpose and also agree that it is a really legitimate goal. The demands the show will put on the kids to be able to learn songs (and dance steps and cues etc for group numbers) and the ability to have the poise to get it right the first time and to answer a brief question on stage , succinctly and with understandable diction really is important.

Being able to work with a crazy mix of egos and agree on an arrangement really shows true and important capabilities.

Not all of that is contrived or unique to the talent show pressure.

The entertainment industry is a nasty cauldron and last minute changes or long tiring road trips etc is part of the game.

BUT

if they could have named the groups at 9 am instead of what seemed like it was 2 PM , those extra hours would have let many more of their talents come through while still being a pressure cooker. It was a little too short a window.

That would have required the judges work a longer Acapela day and/or had a smaller pool to listen to by giving less golden tickets to those the producers knew just weren't going to be what they were looking for. The way they edit it, they don't seem to purposely include lots of fodder to eliminate.

[buzzenator]

I think these grueling Hollywood rounds aren't so much to find the best voice...it's an endurance test to see who can stand up to the rigors of an intense workload/schedule and who can work as a team. They gotta do something to knock the number down to 40 contestants and see who can stand up to the pressures. It is the least enjoyable watching experience but I think it's a necessary step in the process.

Haley survived with flying colors and proved she had what it takes to fend off all obstacles.

Haley didn't fly through with flying colors in the group round...she was almost eliminated. "Survived by the skin of her teeth" as Jlo put it. So Haley's ability to stand up to the rigors of the industry was not highlighted in the group round...she forgot her lyrics, so the group round gave no indication as to how Haley would survive in the industry versus other singers. Eliminating Haley because she forgot her lyrics in a group number? That would have been a monumental Idol flaw...and it almost happened because of the goofy group round. How many other great singers have been lost through this process?

I would agree it is more an entertainment feature than an indication of who is the best singer. The other reality singing shows don't go there with this feature and it is not missed IMHO.

The outcome was more about the politics of the groups, the judges favorites before the group round (probably why Haley survived, because of Steven Tyler) and the overall group sound rather than the individual singers. Some contestants went home because of their group and not because of their individual talents. Some stayed because Nikki liked them over their lack of singing talent.

If the feature is to create more interest in watching then it has missed the mark. I'm going to wait to the live rounds now as this season is more of a mess than previous ones. Did it come off as a rant? Oh, it was...

[Miguel]

I would agree it is more an entertainment feature than an indication of who is the best singer. The other reality singing shows don't go there with this feature and it is not missed IMHO.

The groups are good for casting people.

Good vs Evil
Insecure vs Egotistical

X-Factor did some of this by the way they edited the backstage footage.

[Miguel]

Haley's cousin:

Jameson Skyy ‏@JamesonSkyy

Watching American #Idol for the first time this season... I haven't seen this big a collection of 'mos since the Chicago Pride Parade!

He's gay, so he can say such things.

Jameson Skyy ‏@JamesonSkyy

I know I haven't been watching... But I remember #Idol #HollywoodWeek being full of TALENTED people! I have only seen one good person.

[Himm2]

Jameson Skyy has a few Youtube videos of Haley's Chicago shows:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jamesonskyy
and he left this comment on someone's cover song of "Free":
JamesonSkyy replied to a comment from Yuuwii Choow and liked 9 months ago
Yeah, the entire family was watching your video (as well as a few others), but we all (Haley especially) liked yours the best! Again, great job!:

and this comment was left on his "All My Lovin" youtube:
Typhoon792 1 year ago
Hmm... Ok. I'll take it out.  What I'll do is actually post a download link here though I'm afraid people might misinterpret it as spam. I don't want to post it on my channel as a YouTube video just because I feel like I'd be taking credit that doesn't belong to me. After all, it's JamesonSkyy and Himmm2 that made the recordings and posted them. Maybe I will just post it on my channel and credit them and post a download link in the description. We'll see... Thanks for replying.
(I got annoyed at Typhoon792 because he posted a redirect link to his channel of his mix of Jameson Skyy's audio & my video of that song)

[Tom22]

Haley didn't fly through with flying colors in the group round...she was almost eliminated. "Survived by the skin of her teeth" as Jlo put it. So Haley's ability to stand up to the rigors of the industry was not highlighted in the group round...she forgot her lyrics, so the group round gave no indication as to how Haley would survive in the industry versus other singers. Eliminating Haley because she forgot her lyrics in a group number? That would have been a monumental Idol flaw...and it almost happened because of the goofy group round. How many other great singers have been lost through this process?

I would agree it is more an entertainment feature than an indication of who is the best singer. The other reality singing shows don't go there with this feature and it is not missed IMHO.

The outcome was more about the politics of the groups, the judges favorites before the group round (probably why Haley survived, because of Steven Tyler) and the overall group sound rather than the individual singers. Some contestants went home because of their group and not because of their individual talents. Some stayed because Nikki liked them over their lack of singing talent.

If the feature is to create more interest in watching then it has missed the mark. I'm going to wait to the live rounds now as this season is more of a mess than previous ones. Did it come off as a rant? Oh, it was...

I won't pretend to know everything but they did put a lot of people through who forgot their words last night as they did for Haley.

Nikki (i'm really beginning to like her - but I think I read a lot of what she says as playing a character and don't take it on its flat value) mentioned said something about everybody making mistakes but its what people do when they screw up that really shows what knack they have the business (I'm paraprhasing)

Haley sounded great when she forgot the words and smiled and was kinda cute about it. I still have that Na na na na of hers on one of my play lists. It was quite musical. She showed what she would do if she forgot the words, and that was important in its own right.

Beyond the words the way that the kids work with other people is key and we don't really see all of what they're assessing. (we know the judges are only part of the selection process*) The band gets to observe how they interact with both them and are able to sort out who sings what (which is something they'll be doing each week on the show)... they get to see who is more flexible or easy for them to work with etc.

The celebrity judges certainly must get a taste of those things to in terms of body language taking the stage and pre-performance interaction with band and partners etc.

If I believed it was the judges sitting there deciding who went through largely based on that one performance I'd agree it is bad. No matter how they pretend it works we've seen its more than that.

The night is One of their collection of performances ... another shot for the producers to see them up against different challenges Certainly it is a minus if they habitually flub words but they do make some allowance to the difficulty of the short time schedule.

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I'm not sure if you guys saw this article -- the producers explain a lot more.... I've seen many things similar to this over the years... maybe explaining why I havn't looked at the show as a true competition for 5 or 6 years.... its a cast show where they do have to live with a public vote but they're willing to edit and push songs etc in anyway they like to steer those results for viewership purposes.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/02/06/americ...to-expect/

Here is most of it but there was a bit more before this part i quote:

Each group then chooses its own song from a selection of 20. “A lot of them don’t know the songs, which is really important to us,” said Lythgoe. “Because when you do ‘Music from the Movies,’ normally most of these kids don’t know songs from five years ago. If you’re in a part of the country where the radio stations don’t actually play that kind of music, you’re at a terrible disadvantage. So it’s fascinating.”
And here in the group round is where the cuts can come the quickest. “Some people really, really can’t do it — they can’t pick and learn a song in the period of time we need to do it in the show,” Lythgoe went on. “We need to sort of be up front with whether they’re going to be okay.”
The solo round: You better work! EW was on hand for Warwick and other producers’ “pep talk” to the boys following the group round, headed into the solos, and there was no shortage of tough love. On the short list of things to remember: Show up on time (a vehement complaint towards this group, apparently). Show off your maximum amount of range while singing the most relevant parts of a song. Dress to impress. Bring up your worries with the vocal coaches and accompanists — it’s your one shot! Be the squeaky wheel, basically. Absolutely do not play an instrument unless it’s second nature to you. Random xylophones are not always cute.
And above all — “I said this to you yesterday, and a lot of you didn’t do it today,” Warwick told the guys. “Pick the right bloody key!”
Girl power! According to Lythgoe, the judges had to be reminded during Hollywood Round filming that it’s not necessarily about whether one contestant was better than the person standing next to him or her, but whether that contestant was truly a standout against the entire rest of the pack. “It was tougher with the girls, who are all very strong voices,” he said. “With the boys, there were real standouts.”
And expect to see hidden gems. “There are kids who were not in the audition shows who are turning out to be fabulous,” said Warwick. “We’re going back and telling the producers, ‘Find out where this kid was standing in the line. Find out where they were in the auditorium, in the football stadium. Dig up that footage. Let’s find out what – because we interview every kid that comes in before the judges – find out where there first interview was, what they’re about, what’s their story, is there a story? Is there not a story?”
Of course, much of the Hollywood Round shows will consist of followups with contestants we’ve already met — the coverage of which is Warwick’s job to carefully monitor during filming. “Very often, the judges get the names wrong, and and the cameras don’t know who they’re going to,” he said. “Because I direct the audition shows, I know that if there’s a story that we’re promoting, I can tell the director, ‘make sure you favor him a little on camera’.”
If the judges are split on a contestant, and it’s someone with a “big story,” Lythgoe, the more hands-on “people person” of the producing duo, would be the one to jump in at that point and fight for that person — it occasionally “becomes a casting vote,” said Warwick.
We’ll have more from Lythgoe and Warwick in the days ahead.