So, some of you may already know this, but I found it fascinating:
Had an acquaintance who appeared in the audition rounds for Idol last season, and he gave us the whole scoop on how it actually works. (He wasn’t supposed to, but he’s got a big mouth, and they made him look even crazier than he already is so I imagine he’s somewhat vindictive.)
The auditions go like this: You show up at the local stadium or arena for the main “casting call”. That’s where they show you that whole “8,000 people showed up to audition in Seattle!” thing. A slew of low-level producers are on hand, and you are auditioned by section. The choose a few who are good, and they choose a few who are funny/pathetic, *telling all who make it past that round that they are terrific and that they really have a good chance of winning the show. *
This group is then sent on to a somewhat higher level of producers that same day, with the same criteria: talented or entertainingly awful? After making it past the second round of producers, and being told with a completely straight face that they have star potential and are going to be famous, they are photographed, and told to return in some cases nearly a month later to the X hotel where they will audition for Randy, Paula and Simon. They are to wear the exact same clothing they wore the day of the first big main audition, and do nothing to change their look, for continuity’s sake. Again, they have been told this entire time by American Idol producers that they are good, that they are talented, and that this is the big break they have been waiting for.
It’s a month later, they go to the hotel, they appear before Randy, Paula and Simon … and they get smacked down. Or not. But that’s why you sometimes see people who you think “How on Earth can they be surprised that the judges don’t think they’re good?” It’s because they’ve been stroked like crazy by AI staff for several weeks up to that point.
I liked the girl who does horses. The one with the hair.
As far as Princess Leia’s complaint, they were showing the people coming out with yellow tickets while she railed in a voice-over about how diverse they weren’t. And yet they were. There were fat black people and skinny white people and bespectacled asian people and boys and girls and not-so-sure… she was just a sore loser. And an idiot, for not knowing that Simon hates dumb gimmicks.
All the while Princess Leia was talking, we saw clips of some decidedly not cookie-cutter people who made it through. None of them were as original looking as she was, but it was a nice mix of heights, colors, weights, ages.
Girl Next Door, if that’s true, it explains a lot. And it’s pretty sad.
It also explains all the home footage, especially the home footage of people who totally suck.
You’ve got to feel bad for contestants like Temptress who were told they were great, had film crews taping their sob stories only to be crushed by the celebrity panel.
They should sdtill know that they can’t sing, regardless of what the producers tell them. If they actually believe it when the producers are shining them on, then they’re idiots. I don’t feel sorry for them. How can they possibly not know they can’t sing? Does no one else in their lives have the decency to let them know?
I think the majority of the bad ones (at least the ones who don’t have Asperger’s) are just trying to get on television and are doing schtick. Does anyone really believe the dude in the Princess Leia bikini was being the last bit serious? I don’t.
I feel kind of sorry for the “Go Down Moses” dude because I think he might have been geting pranked by his coworkers.
I agree with that. In fact, I find it so incredible that people can be that stupid that I wonder whether they don’t get some sort of compensation to put on a show scripted by the producers. I suspect they are honest with the really bad ones. “Look, you don’t really have a chance, but if you’d like to make some extra cash, we have an idea for you to consider.”
I just want to clarify that I don’t think they never choose the quirky person, I just think the hot ones have a better chance. In a comparison between two mediocre singers, one hot, one not, chances are the hot one is going to get through before the not-so-hot one. For instance, we saw Liz and the nanny get through, neither of whom I thought was particularly good and who I think will bomb in Hollywood. By comparison, I thought glitter-faced girl probably had a better voice (YMMV may vary, blah, blah). I understand that they didn’t like that what she basically did was an impression of Grace Slick. So why not ask her to sing something else in her own voice? (I say this while keeping it in mind that this was before she went nutso in the hallway. After that little display there’s no way I would have given her a second chance. Same for Princess Leia who swore in front of her grandparents.) Instead she just got a “Sorry, this competition isn’t right for you. Join a tribute band.”
One of the DJs on the local rock station is convinced that the “Go Down Moses” guy was mentally handicapped. Personally, I thought the guy was just being set up by his co-workers…
My husband thought he might be mentally handicapped, too (he only heard his singing, nothing else about him). But I pointed out that he’s a tour guide, so you’d think he’d have to be relatively smart in order to memorize all those historical facts. He seemed pretty normal to me until he started to sing.
I can believe this, actually. I have a friend who can’t carry a tune in a basket. Her singing voice is astonishingly bad. But when we used to drive around (this was in high school, many years ago), she used to sing along with the radio. She never hit the right notes. It was excruciating. I didn’t have the heart to tell her, though–I didn’t want to start a fight. I usually just made an excuse to turn off the stereo.
This always made me self-conscious about singing, because I always thought I could carry a tune (never had any illusions about having a good voice–just being on pitch) and I worried that I was deluding myself as badly as she did. Turns out I was wrong–the spouse, who sang in choirs for years, told me that my pitch was just fine (after I insisted that he tell me the truth even if it hurt my feelings–I needed to know), and lots of “Karaoke Revolution” and “Rock Band” bears this out. Even so, I would never think I had a voice good enough to audition for a “real” singing show.
Just being on pitch – i.e. being able to “carry a tune” – is like 3/4 of the battle in what it takes to be a singer. The rest is having some kind of natural timber which allows it to sound more pleasant. Range helps too, but if you can just stay on tune, you’ll never embarrass yourself or hurt anybody’s ears.
I think a lot of the people we see are literally tone deaf. I think some of them might have a literal inability to tell differences in pitch.
I liked the horse cage fighter girl, she’s got it all going for her right now.
I started to roll my eyes when she mentioned MMA fighting, I was expecting aerobic boxing and just didn’t expect anything real to come out of her. My Barbie-bigotry was pleasingly dispelled when they showed her training clips though, she had some mighty fine technique on her kicks and throws
You sound like a kind person, but for myself, my experience as someone who can’t sing is that generally people are pretty damn gleeful about telling you that you can’t sing. I think some people just have a marvellous capacity to shut out anything they don’t want to believe.
IMHO the last girl (never saw an R-rated movie) was just as much of a freak as Princess Leia, only in more socially acceptable ways. Never drank or danced or saw an R-Rated movie, 'cause momma said so? What’s your angle, chickee?
But she was blonde and shapley, and her voice wasn’t awful, so she gets a ticket to Hollywood. (Which, by the way, is only 3 miles away from Van Nuys where she is a nanny.) I wonder if the producers were deliberately making the contrast between those two for some dramatic purpose?
