Idol Headlines for 07/29/07

Yay Season 7!!!

Yay Season 7 indeed. Hopefully AI & Co. have learned from their mistakes and will let us get to know the contestants this year, for better or for worse. I’m in the camp that thinks that S6 was bad personality AND talent-wise, but it would have been more fun had the emphasis been on the kids, I’ll give you that.

my goodness, purple, are you still here. I said goodnight to you in chat several hours ago.

I am ready for an interesting AI. I am hoping for more like season 5. I thought that was a great season. I hardly watched season 6.

Bring on Season 7 pronto. Season 6 seemed bad to me even if I wasn’t such a big fan of 5. Idol needs to bring back the “rags to riches” story line and put through fewer people who are already in the music biz. I liked Brandon but does Christina A’s back up singer need to go on AI?

Looking forward to Season 7.

Excited that Nigel figured out what one of the major problems with Season 6 was which is we didn’t really get to know the contestants well enough to have strong ties to them. The other problem with Season 6 was lack of diversity. Bring on the rockers, the crooners, the country singers, etc.

Another thing I am looking forward to is the “search for the next great band” show that starts in the Fall. That could be quite interesting.

Yep glad it is starting over and getting to know them more would be nice to a point. I am tired of the season 5 talk and the ones termed as a jerk or not depending on how the media spins and they all are human.
1)Elliot did not want to be apart of 19, and he siad it in an interview if deemed uncool taken out of contence could of created a stir. If he did not get a hit would it be deemed a mistake?
2)The same about Bucky and being seen in a apicture w/ women after he seperated w/ wife..not good idea.Not a story too nice.
3)Taylor (every one dislikes)hicks-everything he does is criticized to a fault..or blown out of preportion.I admit he is not perfect .
The snafus happened to all singers or artisits but before they even begin to star judgement on a precieved though a little too soon. A reality show they show what you want like most of them do.I guess in a way I understand wher Peter Noon was comming from .

Ran out of time to edit…..
Yes I ramble …and probably i am a good conversaion piece in chat just remember to use the word miss.

Last sentence was ment this way..
I think all contestants should be judged on thier music and should not be judged too soon before they even get to start on thier career. I thinki it would be hard to be on AI which gives then an opportunity but remember it is a reality show .They are humans being thurst into the spotlight which I presume is bigger than they thought and the media moves on. I do look forward to season 7. The reality of this is it will happen again but with difernt contestants names in the spaces above.

Idol needs to bring back the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“rags to richesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  story line and put through fewer people who are already in the music biz.

I totally agree – “rags to riches”, a raw talent that needs to be developed – that’s what I thought the show was supposed to be about. Judges this time how about just putting through the real talent to the top 24. Dont try and create good tv. I dont want to be stuck with Sanjaya, Antonella and Haley again. Elliott tidbit… He jumped from 7 to 5 on mediabase top 40. I cant believe it. It will be a difficult climb from here but what an accomplishment!

fyi: constantines cd has leaked already

Well… I may be the only one here, but I am going to miss Season 6 a lot
I enjoyed it so much. Especially Blake Lewis.
BUt… on the other hand I can’t wait for his career to start and his album to drop. Yay!

Where rad?

Do we know what the rules for auditioning this year are? If you were in the final ?? last year, can you still audition this year? They seem to change it up every year–sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.

I think if they make it past Hollywood they can’t audition again, t2. I haven’t heard of any changes.

I enjoyed season 6 a lot and actually think there ended up being much more diversity than originally thought. I went into it with an open mind and found that I liked it every bit as much as previous seasons and more than some. I hope to do the same with season 7. It’s the comparisons that seem to color our perceptions.

Lu, you can here Constantine here.
http://www.americanidol.com/news/view/?pid=948

It was posted on yesterday’s thread

Everybody hear Carrie’s new single yet? Here it is:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-vr8PmOkLp8

I like Carrie’s new single. But I do prefer “Before He Cheats” especially and “Jesus Take the Wheel”.

Well, I’m another one that enjoyed Season 6. I guess it helps that my two favorites made it to the end. I’m not that big on backstories, especially when TPTB distribute them unevenly and give some contestants an unfair advantage over others. Where I really think TPTB messed up in Season 6 is having less focus on the Idols during results shows.

pfeeder thanks for the link! Carrie sounds great in that clip. Not sure about the song…it doesn’t grab me right away, but it doesn’t suck or anything.

The Blaker Girls posted some cute video shout-outs from Blake and Chris Sligh and Chris R.

Lisa B, I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday. Shame on me. :nono_tb:

Can we rename season 7 as season 6? That way, I can pretend that “season 6″ never happened.

Nope there should always be a Season 6. It will be always be remembered in infamy by the media and many American Idol fans.

I am hoping that that season isn’t the beginning of the end of American Idol that the media has predicted but just a season in which AI jumped the shark but came back bigger and stronger.

I read that Elliott’s singing the NA for *the* baseball game today.

the fifth poptart webisode is up….

I also really liked season 6 and I certainly don’t want to pretend it never existed. Why because it doesn’t have the same buzz season 5 had? I really liked Phil and Melinda and would love to see their careers take off. Just like last year some things were hard to predict there’s the chance there could be some breakout stars this year. Did anyone really expect Bucky to be doing as well as he is now? Or Elliott for that matter? I wouldn’t write any of them off just yet.

Does anybody have S6 tour figures? Compared to Season 5, especially. it seems that this tour is doing very well and is very successful. Comments?

Yes I did Bucky is a country singer who is nice looking ,pretty good siner and also country singer do well overall after ai.. Elliot not surprised he is doing fine ,nice voise well liked and reminded me of season three top two. It also helped to get out of Dodge with more freedom.

Then in my point of view doing well is like Duaghtry or Carrie Underwood w/ multiple hit songs, skyrocketing cd sales and a lengthy stay in the billboard top ten. Silly to compare really these guys are not them .

I have no idea how season 6 guys will do but like Taylor I will listen to thiers songs and buy them if I like them…They do not get picked up big time on the radio I will not have a coneption..A They will make mistakes ,not be as near perfect as some will like and you have no control over what happens…That is all in a nutshell.

I agree with Star about the backstories. In the past, they haven’t been applied fairly and have given some contestants unfair advantages. I hope if they focus more on the contestants in Season 7 that they do it in an equitable way.

As for the tour, it’s been getting good reviews, but I don’t think it’s as sold out as last year. My guess is that it’s doing better than some of the previous tours, though. Just a guess.

Is American Idol extending Season 6′s touring dates as it did Season 5? That may give an indication just how well the tour is selling this year.

I believe the number of tour dates from last year to this year is basically the same, maybe four more dates this year.

Last year’s tour had 19 out of 59 shows sell out but sold 96% of their tickets. This year is probably not doing as well but certainly okay. I haven’t read a bad review of the Season 6 tour yet with a lot of people saying they were surprised by the talent.

Last year’s reviews were kind of mixed with lots of digs at the show and the performers. I think this tour is more like a “real show” than last year’s. They seem to have set/choreography/costumes -none of which existed last year. When does Idol release tour numbers?

This year I think they have talent. I think lack of time on the contestants hurt. But I really think Blake, Phil and Gina for me have potential to do really well. Not sure about Jordin. I love some of her performances but she seems unfocused.

I actually liked this season. I think there was a lot of talent there, to call the season 6 contestants untalented is wrong. I think if we put them up against people from previous seasons, they would be as good if not better in many aspects. Nigel and co. are right that the backstories need to be brought out more. I don’t think it needs to be “rags to riches”, I mean what makes someone like Kellie Pickler any less worthy than someone like Jordin Sparks. The audience just needs to “get to know the contestants”, because if you get down to it…everyone has a story that will connect with someone else.

Re: casting talented people…they have been doing this. But you cannot separate the talent show from the fact that it is a television show. This will NOT change. The WILL continue to cast for the TV show with talent of course being part of the equation. But it’s been that way since the beginning. I don’t think some of the contestants in previous seasons were cast primarily because of their talent either. No matter how you cut it, even the most talented contestants weren’t cast for that talent alone. They were cast because there was always something else to make them “pop” on television. Case and point: Elliott Yamin had a great voice, but he had a majorly awesome backstory and mother to go along with it.

IMO the 2 major problems of Season 6 have nothing to do with talent for I think many of Season 6′s singers have talent but it was:

1. Lack of backstory where casual AI watchers didn’t get invested in the contestants early on.

2. Lack of diversity in the beginning. In the beginning it was a lot of R&B and pop singers but no rockers, country singers, etc. It wasn’t until later in the season where various singers found their footing ie Gina singing more rock, Phil singing country, etc. It would have been nice to have more diversity in the beginning as in Season 4 & Season 5 which pulled in a variety of people to watch it (and the audience viewership grew not diminished).

Other things I would change:

1. Going back to 30 minute results night and not have the top 40 acts of the day who have NO RELATIONSHIP to AI perform during results night (ie Akon, Robin Thicke, etc).

2. Extend Hollywood week back to where it was before. I enjoyed the contestants struggling to find their footing during this week.

Very glad that it appears that 19E has invested some money in this Season’s tour. For all the millions last year’s tour made, the props were horrendous.

According to the Forbes story I posted in the other thread, 19E makes $400,000 profit per show, and the singers get paid approx. $5000 per show – not bad at all!
I agree with squishy about one thing – milking the results show for an hour is boring ad nauseum….1/2 hour is enough time….and to include mentors on every single results show – it doesn’t take one hour to get the results and have the mentors sing a song….and why oh why did they feature Gwen Stefani three times? You would think that she was an 19E artist!
Hollywood Week is when I start watching the show, until then I’m not interested in the embarassing auditions…it’s redundant to see the same sorry singers…
What vids I’ve seen online the show is well choreographed and written….and could give H.S. Musical a run for its money….I just wonder – if the tour is successful if perhaps they do a show like H.S. Musical or at least tape the tour and make a TV special out of it….

1. Lack of backstory where casual AI watchers didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t get invested in the contestants early on.

I don’t think I would have cared any more for Haley had I known which high school she graduated from. The same goes for a lot of contestants for me.

The backstory element definitely could have helped, but I think it can only go so far if you’re hohum in the singing department.

Canadian Idols results are half an hour, AND they fit in a performer.

If AI goes back to 30 minute results show next year then I know they are taking it seriously that they really need to improve from Season 6.

1. Going back to 30 minute results night and not have the top 40 acts of the day who have NO RELATIONSHIP to AI perform during results night (ie Akon, Robin Thicke, etc).

Agree. However, I think they should have a one hour show and it would be great to see some awesome performances from superstahs of days gone by. They could pull in anyone from the 50′s thru the 90′s for results night. It would be exciting to see an old fave and would help introduce the artists to a whole new fanbase.

I disagree with lg: they always manage to pull in the superstahs of yesterday with the final show. Did you not see Gladys, Smokey, Doug E and Joe Perry on the final show? If anything, the superstahs of yesteryear could be the guest judges like they did in season 2-3. But they discontinued THAT because Simon C. protested and didn’t like sharing the stage with other “guest” judges. I enjoyed watching Ashford-Simpson, EWF, Lionel Richie, sit and pass opinion. Maybe they shouldn’t sit at the table with the judges, maybe right behind them in the first row.

I thought Tony Bennett was mis-used and mis-placed in the show. I liked when they had songwriter-singers like Barry Manilow give pointers to the contestants, that was very interesting. The producers just need to go back a few seasons to see what worked.
What brought the show down this year was all the mentoring and featuring singers not associated with AI. the producers felt that having Gwen Stefani would bring a younger audience. Who cares?
(Although I did enjoy Jlo’s performance and want to see her on tour after that)

This group is very talented musically, if you see the vids online. There’s a reason they were chosen by the judges and the audience. There’s still a lot of growth to come from several of them.

I don’t see anything happening with Haley. The jury is still out on all of them. After the tour, who knows? See how long it’s taking Kat McPhee to get up to speed? It’s a whole year later!

RE: AI6 Tour vs AI5

I think we all have to wait until Ken Barnes gets all the data from Billborad Boxscore. Anything else is just speculation, including press reports. Last year’s tour was a smashing success. I don’t think they can approach anywhere near last year’s numbers…

http://blogs.usatoday.com/idolchatter/idol_tour/index.html

Yes I saw Smokey, Gladys, Joe P, etc. I just didn’t care enough to watch most this year. I was mainly agreeing with the part about “no AKON” and others who are uninspiring (at least to me). If anyone deserves major pimpage, it should be the greats of old, imo. The contemporary artists shown this year (of the little I watched) did nothing for me…

Lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz05G358MI8

Well Barry Gibb did nothing for me.
Maybe they could bring back Idols from years past who have a career in music. Jennifer Hudson would have totally worked this year obviously.

Canadian Idol had Rhianna on this week, which was totally forgetable.

I’d rather have seen Theresa Sokyrka..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IN5rWG50RY

Thanks PJ! That made my night!

Watching Clay Aiken sing “Sexy Back” is a sight to see.

I would like to see former idol contestants brought back on results night to sing their current singles out.

That clip of Clay is embarrassing. He has such a great voice and there was so much potential there, he’s better than that. I remember when he was so huge he made the cover of Rolling Stone and was everywhere. What happened?? I suppose Clive will be solely blamed? LOL

Obviously Clay is confident enough to joke around with his audience. He’s funny like that…

HOLY.

FUCKING.

FUCK.

I guess I can’t sleep ever again after my red eye last night. So…

Obviously Clay is confident enough to joke around with his audience. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s funny like that

Exactly. His audience. Very campy and fun. I gotta wonder how he plans to convince Clive to let him do originals when he puts on shows like that. I just don’t see the market for original music from him as long as the fans are eating that stuff up.

I clicked on a link of him doing “The Way You Make Me Feel” and I liked Sanjy’s version better.

I think you have to watch a whole concert to get Clay. He goes from ripping through a sad ballad to being dorky and making fun of himself and back to serious singing, over and over throughout a 2 hour concert. If you isolate and present only the silliness and judge the whole concert by that it is so unfair.

O.M.G. That Clay clip is cringe-worthy. *shudder*