In a new interview with the Associated Press, American Idol producer, Nigel Lythgoe, says not to expect any major changes for American Idol Season 11. Hollywood Week is set to take place in December.
Nigel says the biggest change last year allowed singers to perform in their own genre. The result was niche artists like the jazzy Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart going deeper into the competition. It also made it easier for country artists Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina, to come in first and second respectively.
See quotes from the interview below:
“I think we made a lot of tweaks last year,” Lythgoe said. “I’m not sure that we want to make too many more tweaks this year.”
“The biggest change we made last year was to say, ‘OK, if you’re a country singer you can sing any of these genres in your country style,’” Lythgoe said. “’We’re not going to force you to do rock or anything you can’t do. You can take a Michael Jackson song and turn it country.’”
Lythgoe said last year the show found “some incredible talent, and it was so diverse.”
“We got this great jazz singer in Casey, we got a soft jazz singer in Haley, and the two country kids (in the finals) probably in previous years wouldn’t have been as successful because they would have been asked to sing in the different styles that we used to do then,” he said last week.
“The kids that have auditioned this year that we’re going to be taking to Hollywood in December are again really talented and really diverse,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll get through one of the toughest auditions, which is the Hollywood week, and get themselves into the top 20.”
“For me,” he said, “it’s really showing the talent that is here and not trying to take somebody who’s talented, beat them around the bucket and turn them out.”
Changes I would like to see: Make the middle rounds a little longer, rather than the sudden death 1 week deal we had Season 10. And for God sake, encourage the judges’ panel to offer some HONEST constructive criticism to the contestants! The love fest was a bore and helped no one.
