I’d never heard of him… and now after that Wiki article… ugh! Wish I never had! EEEEWWW!
Another thing. Stern is a genius in some ways. He’s got a good portion of the American believing that he’s influencing the American Idol voting. Think this through a bit. Voting on Idol is not as simple as making one phone call. Lines are often busy and it takes a while to get through. Compare the Stern listener, who decides to try to call once, doesn’t get through, and moves on, to a Sanjaya fan, who is probably under fifteen, who calls ten times and texts as well for good measure.
The great thing is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that VFTW or Stern has any impact. If Sanjaya was a complete pear-shaped loser, there might be a suggestion that there was some impact. But Sanjaya is an average singer, not great but not terrible, either. He just has no power in his voice. Young girls find him attractive. He isn’t the first AI contestant who gained notoriety for his looks over talent - think Constantine from a few seasons back. VFTW alleges that they were responsible for keeping Scott Savol and Kevin Covais on the show… not realizing that both performers had active fanbases. They have no way of proving they have any impact but people somehow believe it.
Don’t forget VFTW actually selected Jennifer Hudson as one of their picks a few seasons back. I think Sanjaya will be successful. With some studio magic, he could put out a nice non-threatening album that every girl under fourteen will buy. And parents will buy t-shirts, videos, games, and concert tickets because he’s nice and innocent. Also, there are plenty of adults who like him fine.
I think it’s generally agreed that the men are not very good this season. It’s not like there’s a huge gap in talent between Chris R. and Phil and Sanjaya. We know the women outclass the men talent-wise, but don’t forget people have a lot of reasons for liking an artist. Personality, looks, or even what people think these people represent matters as much as their ability to carry a tune. Cowell knows this, and believe me, he is probably considering the cash cow that Sanjaya can be if he goes far in the competition.
Now if we ever get a contestant like William Hung making it into the finals, then this show is toast. Truth be told, everyone who gets to the finals is talented enough to have some kind of career in entertainment. Melinda and Sanjaya are miles apart but they have the ability to bring people to a show and move product. For different reasons.
They actually encourage it. Kinda makes sense if you think about it. Someone who votes once, probably likes the person they vote for. Someone who votes a bunch of times will probably buy the CD. Some 14 year old girl that votes 74 times will probably buy the CD, go to the concert, buy bunch of merchendise, buy the next CD, buy a few posters and talk the person up to their friends. When you think about it, someone who’ll probably spend $200 over the course of a few years (on the person they vote for, should they win) should get more voting power then someone who probably won’t spend a dime on the person their voting for.
That and they really seem to like bragging about the number of votes, so I’m sure they like that number to be as high as possible.
Music geek alert: It must have been '66, because the Beatles weren’t touring in '67. Their last show was August 29, 1966, at Candlestick Park.
Well, them and Indian-Americans. In season 3, Jasmine had a zillion votes from Hawai’i, which has its own time zone, so no obstruction. In season 4, every chapter of Carrie’s sorority was dialing for her, for the entire two-hour window. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the majority of Indian-Americans are hitting redial for Sanjaya.
And why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t anyone vote as many times as they want? As has been pointed out, the ability to vote multiple times gauges interest in the contestants, and also increases the hype. Plus, Cingular is one of the sponsors. If Ryan’s going to say “If you have CINGULAR, you can text-message…So use your CINGULAR phone to vote for who you want to return…” it would kind of spoil the effect if he was obligated to add, “But you can only vote once!”
In this thread, the only thing I’m “seriously arguing” is that Chris Sligh has not shown any indication of any intolerance. There’s a reason it’s a logical fallacy to say that because X is a Y, X must share all the properties of everyone who is a Y.
ETA:
I cheered out loud when they announced that Lulu would sing To Sir With Love. And then my heart sank when she didn’t sing it like the original. She’s not competing for American Idol. I wish she’d have just “kept it real”.
I was disappointed in that performance too…but damn, she was beautiful.
For accuracy’s sake-- Lulu is NOT older than my dad. After a little research, I see that she is two years younger than my dad.
Still.
Wow. Stephanie sucked a little, but I don’t believe she deserved the boot. I missed the show last night. Was there any discussion from the judges about who got the boot and the fact that Sanjaya is still on?
I did catch Peter Noone’s performance. Indeed, he’s packed on a few pounds, but I still love him.
True confession time: I didn’t watch Peter Noone, because I was afraid he’d sing “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” which is one of my all-time favorite songs and also one of those ditties that never fails to make me bust out into hysterical tears, and I didn’t want my eyes to be all puffy when “Lost” came on, just in case Matthew Fox can see me through the TV. Does this make me a bad person?
Lulu- wow. You can rock my world anytime.
Steph- it was a justifiable booting. She’s not one of the top 3 females, and Gina will be the next girl to go. It obviously should have been Sanjaya, but he’s still getting the sympathy/tweenybopper vote. Steph is a good singer but hasn’t distanced herself from the pack.
Heh-heh…no, but that does make you (and me) nostalgic geezers. 
Sanjaya reminds me very much of Jasmine. (she was the cute Hawaiian girl who always wore the hibiscus flower in her hair, right?)
Both are clearly out of the league of the other contestants, yet had a very strong fan base that brought them back week after week. It was depressing watching Jasmine as the weeks went on, because she clearly knew that she was outclassed by others being voted out before her. It showed in a pained look on her face.
Yes, Jasmine had the flower. I don’t remember a pained look on her face when she made final 3, though: I remember her squealing and waving as if she’d been crowned Miss America.
I don’t really have much to say (trying to hold back the hate for Sanjaya) except I want to brag a little that I totally called it yesterday that Stephanie would be going home. If only I’d had that kind of foresight when creating my American Idol pool list.
I didn’t watch Tuesday night, so I don’t feel as though I can make any specific remarks about anyone’s performance.
That said, I’ve got a few general observations:
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I don’t get the Phil dislike. OK, so he’s bald and he reminds everyone of Nosferatu, but he’s got a decent voice and the basic moves. I can see him being a “dark horse” and surprising everyone.
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Sanjaya, OTOH…argh, so he’s cute and gets the teenybopper/tween vote. That’s it, though. I sort of feel bad for him, but not enough to give him a sympathy vote. This is the big leagues now, kid. You’ve got to step up to the plate.
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Chris R. gives me a WTF? response. Seriously, there’s nothing remarkable about him. I was surprised he got to stay…:
: -
I agree re Stephanie in that she never did anything to make her distinct from the rest of the pack. Watching her going-home montage, it looked as though she didn’t care whether she stayed or went, and that’s exactly how she played it.
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I like Gina more than Haley. I can see Gina being the female “dark horse” re what I said about Phil above.
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Melinda, LaKisha, and Blake have nothing to worry about
Ah, I got the year wrong, to no one’s surprise. It’s such a painful memory, I’ve tried to wipe it all out. Unfortunately, that ain’t gonna happen; 40 years later and it’s still as traumatic as it was then.
I saw a story on one of those gossip shows this morning with Little Crying Girl. She’s 13, lives in Riverside, CA, and is a huge Idol fan. She and her mom came to the dress rehearsal, and she started crying during the dress rehearsal and never let up, so they moved her down to the front for the show itself. So her placement was a plant, but her crying? Was totally real. Her mom said she was still crying the next morning. 
I don’t get it either, and the comments about his looks (especially the stupid links to pictures of Nosferatu) are getting on my nerves. Come on, people! I could probably find something about every single contestant’s looks to pick apart but I don’t because it seems juvenile and that’s not what this is about. It seems silly to me that people have irrational hatred for someone because of how he looks.
I dislike him because of how he acts, not because of how he looks. I think he acts like a douche.
Is it still about missing his daughter’s birth to audition for AI then? Because I don’t think we’ve seen enough of him otherwise to determine whether he’s a douche or not.