See? This is what I’m talking about. What possible evidence do you have that she’s spoiled rotten? Do you think she’s hasn’t worked to get here? I really don’t get the irrational hatred some people have for some of these contestants. Some are better than others, some have better performances/worse performances, but they’ve all busted their asses every week for your entertainment and not one of them deserves this level of vitriol (except for those twins, they were just fucking annoying).
Well, duh, if by “demographics”, you mean “more people voted for her than for Elliot (or Chris or Paris or whoever).” If by that you mean, “Simon picks the most marketable”, I would offer Taylor’s continued presence and Ruben’s win as evidence that Simon is not rigging the vote.
He thinks the show’s producers rig the show to keep the greatest number of people interested. Back when Mandisa went home, he said, “See, they can afford to do that because they still have Paris.” He just has to be cynical, ya know?
First off, irrational hatred has been a part of American Idol from day one, back in '01.
Re: Katherine. (I can only speak for myself here, and I’m trying to be as logical as I can about it.) I think it all started with the coverage she was given at the beginning of the show. Mommy’s a vocal coach in L.A., for starters. That doesn’t give her the “I came from the hicks where there are no vocal coaches” charm that contestants like Kellie Pickler and that cowboy kid had. What makes her different from say, Paris, then, whose mom and grandmother are singers? Paris had charisma. She was fun and bouncy and came up with good answers to Ryan’s questions. In recent weeks, Kat has come to annoy me more and more. Her huge smiles and little giggles after each performance strike me as, “Oh, wasn’t it nice that you got to listen to me sing!” For all I know, that has nothing to do with it, but it’s a matter of perception. She takes the judges’ criticisms and the guest coaches’ suggestions very poorly. That strikes me as, “I’m already good enough to make it and I don’t need any of you telling me how to do it.” Which leads me to believe that’s what she’s been told her whole life because mommy’s a vocal coach. And we come full circle.
That’s just how my mind works, and if it doesn’t make sense to you, that’s fine. I don’t expect anyone to understand what goes on in my mind (I’m sure I’d have a difficult time explaining why I hate Celine Dion to one of her fans too). Irrational? Probably. But as I stated already, this show has always prompted irrational hatred in its audiences.
Fair enough, I suppose. I don’t get it (it is, after all, just a show), but fair enough. In the interest of full disclosure, I should offer that I’m not particularly a Kat fan although I do think she is better than Elliot, both in voice and performance. Taylor probably is the most entertaining for me (probably due to wise song choice, his epilitic fits on stage distract from his performances IMHO). Early on, I was amazed at the power of Paris’ voice and probably would have picked her to go farther if I was given the power.
The show definitely thrives on irrational viewer emotions, and are very good at engineering the show to play on those emotions. I get caught up in them myself, and then I’m embarassed about it. It is inexplicable. We end up wanting a certain type of person to succeed, even though we’re skeptical of the success itself (lousy recording contract), and only have caricatures to root for or against. The most divisive personalities seem to do the best. Love em or Hate em sorts. I hated Chris and I have no idea why. Song choices? Relentless pimping? The first isn’t that big a deal, and the second isn’t his fault. But there you have it. I ended up hating the guy (a very superficial hate, I admit), just because he got the flames on the jumbotron and sang the self-indulgent version of Walk the Line. The producers totally know what they’re doing, evoking our deepest feelings of entitlement on the one hand and resentment on the other. It’s really very high schoolish, when you think about it: pretty popular girls, cool guys, lovable nerdy guys, class clowns.
Incidentally, the most overstated meme of the season is that Taylor is spastic. I’ve never seen him out of control of his muscles. I guess it goes back to high school halway conversations. Taylor acts like he doesn’t know what’s cool, which some perceive as ubercool, and others can’t stand.
Ahem, that would be the **third ** time Birmingham has done this.
Reuben, Bo and Taylor. What can I say? We’re just so damn happy that the national spotlight is on us for something other than civil rights violations that we go nuts for a local hero.
I dont’ remember Reuben’s homecoming, but I do remember the night he won and it was Birmingham Mardis Gras for a week or so. I expect that again if Taylor wins. And I so hope he does. If for no other reason than for personal gain - I have a Taylor Hicks CD from 1997 that it looks like he did it himself in one of those “pay by the hour” studios that Taylor gave my brother in high school. Wonder how much that would be worth?
I do believe that Katharine has worked her butt off. However, she grew up in LA with her professional voice coach Mom. Add in the facts that she went to an obviously private high school in Sherman Oaks and the Boston Conservatory of Music, both of which are probably not cheap. If her family has that much money and she lives in a town where there are opportunities around every corner, then why did she come to a TV show to get her break?
I’m surprised that nobody is talking about the votes from the results show.
For the first time that I have seen, FOX showed the exact vote totals. It was basically a three way tie between all of them. Elliot was a fraction of a percent lower than the other two.
I don’t usually vote for Idol. I watch after the fact with Tivo most of the time, and just don’t care enough to vote anyway. However, it’s my understanding from coworkers and others that when you do vote the lines are often busy.
Doesn’t it just seem as if this whole contest is simply based on the phone lines being tied up?
Let’s say ten million people want to vote for Kat and Taylor, yet only 5 million people want to vote for Elliot. Well, if most voters keep calling over and over again, and the phone lines only can handle two million callers at once, that will end up being a three way tie, right? The numbers of actual voters don’t matter. It’s all about the number of calls that get through.
FOX obviously wanted to show that it was a tight contest by posting those numbers, but all they did was cast a huge doubt over whether the votes are working fairly at all.
When Chris went home last week was that another tie between all four remaining contestants?
At this point, don’t really care who wins…both have better than average talent, but not sure if either will ever have a huge career.
To be honest, I think Chris and Paris will wind up being the big names of this year and American Idol will become a minor footnote in their bios as they continue on what will probably be a better career path than either of the two remaining finalists.
Must be driving Simon nuts knowing he is going to have to try to market one of two singers he has never really liked all that much from day one.
I voted for Taylor and had no trouble getting through. Also, if you monitor Dial Idol, you’ll see their scores drop a lot towards the end of the call in time, indicating that people aren’t getting busy signals.
So I don’t think that the board is always jam packed, and I do think the winner is the one the most people vote for.
The percentages they cited translate to a much bigger difference between Taylor and Kat than between Kat and Elliott. Taylor had about 200,000 votes more than Kat, and Kat had 100,000 more than Elliott.
I have high hopes for Paris, but Chris Daughtry won’t be much more than a trivial pursuit question in five years. I don’t think Bo Bice will be, either. I guess we’ll see.
Well, it seems to me it was pretty fair this week when they gave each idol three phone numbers apiece for fans to call. That would certainly increase your chances of getting through, I would think. The call-in voting and fairness of said voting has long been in question in AI. The biggest controversy I can remember was when Ruben beat Clay. Should each person only be allowed to vote once? Maybe, but that would probably be difficult to control. Besides, it encourages fan bases to form and vote like mad for their favorite contestants. I think it’s all part of the briliant marketing of the show that keeps all us suckers (hey, I’m one too) coming back week after week and season after season.
If I were you, I wouldn’t wait too long after he wins to try to sell it. Strike while it’s hot, I say!
Was/is your brother friends with Taylor? I’d be interested to hear what he’s like “in real life” as opposed to what he’s portrayed as on the show.
I understand from my brother that he is genuinely a likeable guy and pretty much what he seems. However, I do not know if my brother really knows him or merely bumped into him a few times and is trying the “knowing him” card to seem cool around the Mother’s Day dinner table. But I still have the CD. So at least I got that out of it.
My brother and I went to the same HS as Taylor, but I graduated earlier and my bro. graduated later. How old is Taylor? I’m 30 so I don’t know how many years I missed him by. I can check my yearbook later this weekend if he’s close to me.
He does seem like a genuinely likeable guy, but you never know. Often reality shows edit people to look a certain way, be it good or bad, so it’s hard to tell if it’s the way the person really is or not. Things like that pique my curiosity, for some strange reason. But shame on your brother for trying to show off at Mother’s Day dinner!
Just curious: does anyone else find that Taylor’s voice seems, well, thin somehow?
He hits the notes fine, but…well, there’s nothing more backing it up. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that, I’m not all that into music so if there’s a proper vocabulary for that kind of sound I don’t know it.
It strikes me like the difference between a a single flower extract and a finished perfume blended from various scents. Taylor’s voice just seems to lack the sensation of being rich or full or lush that I get from hearing many other professional singers.
