I missed it. I did see the notice when it was already in progress but I was also doing other things. I’d love to see a chat with Slezak and Cantiello. I’m sure it will be fun and entertaining.

I just got done reading the other chat log with Ju`not, FELICIA BARTON, and Kendall Beard. What a treat. The juxtaposition of the 3 of them is quite interesting. The girls know how to play the game and are much more mature.

Absolutely thrilled that Felicia is recording and opened for David Cook on a VA show. Just got done watching a youtube from there and she looks and sounds great. It sounds like she has a contract in the works on some level and we’ll be able to get her music when she’s released from the AI contract next month. She’s been writing and recording in Nashville.

One thing on Ju`not that I know is truthful is the contract situation. A friend’s son made it to Hollywood week in season 5 and she was furious that he signed the contract without legal advice or even a copy of it. He never got any face time, but he couldn’t even sing in church for a year …. and I mean sitting in a pew singing, not a member of the choir.

Forget Ju`not getting robbed, I think Felicia did. But her husband’s internet blogs may have targeted her for elimination. Hard to guess.

Great chat. Looks like it was a lot of fun.

As talented as I think Adam is, I think he needed AI much more than people think he did. I don’t think he would have ever gotten ‘discovered’  because his open sexual orientation would be too risky for some music industry suits to take a chance on.

I agree. And, I also believe he needed the pimping, even with his immense talent and superb performances. As Adam said himself, that allowed some people (who may have been hesitant) to support him and feel it was ok to do so.

I didn’t agree with Rushfield’s “heart” analysis either, nor that Adam seemed too “cool” so not the right “AI story.” But I don’t disagree that quite a few people (in the AI voting demographic) likely viewed it that way.

b. I agree on their concern about the contracts going high with the ratings dipping : Seems to remind me of the trouble in US Baseball when the player’s contract got to be astronomical that the league could not afford the salaries . In this case , we are even talking about the Judges and the host and the management – not even remuneration for the contestants or players -. I do not think the viewers were ever cheering on the judges. A big overhead cost to hurdle for the show.

Maybe next season we’ll get a different kind of story, but I doubt it. As the reviewer said after the Memphis (?) show, there’s a certain ‘true American Idol demographic’  and I think winners will more than likely fit that niche than anything else.

Well keeping it to the chat here, and the only reason I referenced Rushfield’s article at all, is that it was specifically mentioned in the chat today by someone and he commented on it, but personally, I don’t think anything will change. I mean, I hope it will. As Brian Mansfield said, and I think he’s right, they are building a ramp to jump over the shark with all their bullshyte pimping. I personally think they only managed to avoid that this season with all the focus on the judges and ALL the crap that was going on, by somehow managing to find some really appealing people (especially Kradison) in the process. If they continue the fuckery they did this year (and yeah, getting rid of Paula and keeping Kara of all people while doing so) they better REALLY be lucky with their talent or suit up Fonzie.

Maybe next season we’ll get a different kind of story, but I doubt it. As the reviewer said after the Memphis (?) show, there’s a certain “true American Idol demographic” and I think winners will more than likely fit that niche than anything else.

Once this thread strays off the topic and enters fanwar territory, I will shut off comments.

of course not’ ¦.these guys, all of them, are pretty much a rags to riches story (even, danny who drove a truck for a living). however, adam was on a widely successfull show (Wicked) and got to meet/ receive career advice from Madonna (introduced through a mutual friend)

Adam was a chorus boy in Wicked and understudy for the lead. And I believe only got to meet and get advice from Madonna, after the show ended. Monte didn’t pass along Adam’s fanboy messages to Madonna before then. And here is my point which I think Rushfield seemed to miss, yes, Adam was in LA and by it’s very nature, one has a chance to see other famous people and talk to them. But he despite all of his hard work and being in the center of the entertainment industry, wasn’t “getting discovered.” Which isn’t to say he wasn’t talented. Just that it’s a hard business period and actually being in LA means there are TONS more people competing with you. Adam was living in crappy apartments, doing retail jobs at times, having to have money sent by his parents to get food/pay rent. It’s no less rags to richier than Kris’s. Just because Kris came from some small town, doesn’t make his climb any more, or less, steep and harder than Adam’s. Just different. And Kris wasn’t just some naif. Just like Carrie Underwood actually wasn’t before him (who Rushfield also cites in his article). Kris recorded several tracks, he was performing rock gigs. And Adam with his stage experience, actually had a strike against him because of it. Certainly with people like Simon and TPTB in the past, it has been. And Adam himself said, he had habits to unlearn from his stage work. Whereas Kris didn’t have do unlearn that at least, with his experience.

Adam’s experience of being in a big city and struggling to get noticed, pay the rent, is no less or more to the heart of America, and the intent of AI, than Kris’s story is. Other than that Kris came from some small town in the South, and Adam was struggling in a big city, which yes, happens to be the entertainment center of the world. So gee, the show, once again, gave the title to some small town Southern person. Yawn. That doesn’t mean the show has more heart to me. That just tells me the show is doing the same old, same old. I personally would have been much more heartened to finally see some coastal and/or Northern, big city person who had a different kind of experience, win. Rather than yet another people like last year’s winner of Cook and this year’s winner of Kris were with their similiar rock band, small Southern town, experiences/life.

Again, one of the only parts of the Rushfield’s chat today about this, and point of his article that I agreed with, is that the show, though not in the rest of reality, made Kris an underdog and that is a very appealing story. But outside of the show, Kris is not an underdog compared to Adam. So another point I agree with from today’s chat (and overall), is that the show needs to tamp down it’s pimping/dismantle that ramp, or the shark, she shall be jumped. Because newsflash, 18-49 hetro white Christian males are not the underdogs. Or as my friend likes to quote from the Simpsons, “I’m a white male between 18-49, everybody cares what I think!”

Ju’Not also says the show wanted to talk about his personal business and background living in the hood for ratings, which he refused to do.

Dont understand why he didn’t want that on the show.I do understand why david cook or scott from this season didn’t want some of the stuff out.How you grew up is part of who you are.

It’s not like Adam didn’t work his heart out just as much as Kris ever did. Or that Adam’s story was any less than ‘rags to riches.’

Right on and then some.

While there is no such thing as comparative pain, as everyone’s emotional reaction is just whatever it is to a situation, having lived in both the South and Santa Monica, I’m going to risk saying Adam had it “raggier”. Maybe not in a TV script way. But in real reality.

For the past 5 years, Kris has been a very young guy, clearly quite smart, but not so sure about school, and, like a lot of young people, figuring out how to proceed in life. And while doing that, he lived in his hometown, surrounded by his wonderful family, and kind, nice people, including his childhood sweetheart, whom he married.

Adam, who started his adulthood earlier, spent the past nine years having both his heart and bank account broke and banging his immense talent against the insane, soul-killing, moral blankness that is show biz. It’s a miracle he survived with so much charm and politeness intact. And didn’t become a drug addict, someone’s cute young thing, or both. Having his loving family not too far away had to have helped. As did the great emotional support they showered throughout his early life. But if he hadn’t gotten the Wicked job, he might have decided fashion was his calling.

Talent is low on the list of reasons people get ahead in Hollywood. Hard work, though required, doesn’t necessarily help either. We’re all lucky he was trained so well, so young, so he didn’t seriously compromise his voice or his craft. And that he had that Idol epiphany in the desert. Because this allowed his talent to go almost unfiltered to the public. And allowed the industry to see him as enough of a “proven” commodity, that they could support that kind of talent. Sexy and fascinating he may be, but the core of Adam Lambert’s appeal is his voice.

And next season, if amazingly, 6 more people with that kind of voice show up, they’re more likely to get “put through” to the 36. Because America has shown they want it. In fact, as demonstrated by Kris’s great skills, and, as mentioned in the nice live chat, the level of others in the Top 10, they now expect it. And the show can get “rigged” with big talent.

And, of course, TPTB, are indefensible. But look how well they’ve treated Kris and Adam record wise. (We don’t know about Allison, yet). Not just no indentured servant feel, but lavish, respectful, you-want-it-you-got-it, honored artist treatment. At least 19 has learned.

Based on what tho? the info leaked by 19 and associated business partners? or their newly minted, totally dependent recording artists?

Absolutely guaranteed the votes are real. Just like all advertising sweepstakes are real. TV found out decades ago that to lie on that level is to invite failure. And prison terms. The realness of the votes is why they have to work so hard to control everything else.

Yes. Although I wonder if 19 actually got their desired outcome in the end this time (doesn’t matter when they can really do whatever they like now that the season’s over)

It’s not like Adam didn’t work his heart out just as much as Kris ever did. Or that Adam’s story was any less than ‘rags to riches.’

of course not….these guys, all of them, are pretty much a rags to riches story (even, danny who drove a truck for a living). however, adam was on a widely successfull show (Wicked) and got to meet/ receive career advice from Madonna (introduced through a mutual friend)….while Kris was making an album w. his school buddies and playing in clubs in Conway AR…Conway population = one LA city block LOL so maybe its best to say Kris was just rag(ier) than adam…or his rag was bigger? uhh, not sure how that reads