American Idol: Quarterfinal 1, Feb. 4

Cafe Society
21

Ok… so first, a question. How do they get to 10 finalists? They had 8 go last night, and they have 32 finalists right now. I assume that means there will be 4 shows of 8 singers. But they said only 2 from last night get passed on. If 2 from each 4 groups of 8 go, that leaves you with only 8 finalists? Is there like a wild-card dealio or something?

Ok… onto the performers last night.

Kimberly. I have to admit I thought she had the look and she sounded great. She was first up, which also has to be tough. I wish I didn’t think she was such a bth during the earlier eps.

Patrick. I wasn’t impressed. I expected a much bigger voice from him, and I thought the song was terrible. I even agreed with Simon that the outfit didn’t work. And I’m sorry, but his dad didn’t help by coming out on stage to defend him.

Meosha. Nothing really stood out. I wasn’t that impressed and didn’t think she even looked that great.

Trenyce. See Meosha. Same thing. And I think if she was going to change her name she should have made up something a little catchier. Like Madonna or something.

J.D. This guy’s voice didn’t impress me at all. I didn’t like the song and I didn’t think he sounded that great doing it. I like the connection to dead presidents and all, but I didn’t think he really performed very well. I bet lots of teenage girls don’t care how he sounded though.

Bettis. ??? I’m hoping this guy was able to sing better in the audition rounds (I don’t recall him) because that was horrible. And I don’t know why he thought acting like Michael Jackson would help his performance. As Simon said, he just blew. it.

Charles. I liked this guy a lot. I thought he picked a tough song and sounded so much like Stevie doing it that I was thoroughly impressed. He seemed calm and confident, didn’t try to “perform” too much, just sang. I didn’t care for the denim look, though.

Julia. I thought she was pretty good, seemed to have an “Idol” type look, and showed enough potential that, with a different song, I could see her really performing well. She didn’t totally nail it, but showed enough for me to think she deserves to move on.

The problem I had is that I thought Julia, Charles, and Kimberly all should go on. I’d really like to see Charles go on out of this group, and I guess one of the other two. I didn’t care for Kimberly before now, so I’ll say I hope Julia moves on and hope she steps it up a notch next time.

22

I don’t get the “Kimberly = Evil Bitch” part. What is that based on? The only thing I can think of is the spat with Julie Demato, which I thought was Julie’s fault for being a stuck up little prat that didn’t want to rehearse with the group (the real bitch is Julie’s sister - yowza, stay away!). Did I miss something last week?

(By the way, I’m with the Kimberly, Trenyce, Charles group.)

23

The judges pick 2 wild cards themselves, to make up for the viewing audience shows themselves to be too stupid to know what they like. No doubt they want Julia and J.D., but I don’t know why.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I prefer control and phrasing to simple yelling, as several of the contestants were doing. Dammit, I like Patrick and Charles from this group. Kimberley was OK, I guess, but the rest were so-whats.

24

What I remember about the Julia/Kimberly spat was that Julia was waiting all night for the group to rehearse. They never showed up, and Julia went to bed late. Next morning, they got together but Julia didn’t show up on time (I think it was out of spite, she took her sweet old time since she practiced by herself the night before when they didn’t show up) and they practiced without her. Then when she showed up Kimberly was all like “we already practiced too bad”, and was a real bitch to her.

25

Shelbo, what I got out of the whole Julie/Kimberly spat was that there was some misunderstanding in which Julie thought the other 3 were eating dinner and she waited in the lobby for them for hours. They actually had been practicing without her (again, due to a misunderstanding). Cut to the next day, when Julie found out they had been practicing, it appeared that the other three girls didn’t want Julie in their group anymore. It seemed like they didn’t care there was a misunderstanding and were like, “You don’t know the routine, tough luck for you” Then Julie’s sister stepped in to say, “You guys need to work together”, but Kimberly was still resistant to allowing Julie into the group. Finally Frenchie, who had been rooming with Julie, talked Kimberly and the other two into showing Julie what their routine was. Someone else can fill in any other info that I missed.

26

OK, that makes sense. I saw parts of that interaction, but not the whole thing. I still don’t think it rises to the level of “Kim = evil bitch”. (Or, I may just be in denial, since she and I are now close enough that I call her “Kim”.) :wink:

27

Thanks ElvisL1ves. Do they wait until the very end to pick the 2 wildcards? So it’s possible some of these people will be sent home and then called back? Or if they think it’s likely that, for example Kimberly is going to get a wildcard, do they keep her out there until the end so that they maybe have a few people still there to give the 2 wildcards to? I guess the wildcard makes sense, but then again it seems like it could be an emotional rollercoaster. First: Sorry, you’ve not been voted to remain. Go home. Later: Hey! You get a wildcard, regroup and come back!

??

Thanks for the quick response, though!

28

The way they did it last time is they allow America to pick their choices, then those from the top 32 who weren’t voted in by America come back and perform again. From that pool, the judges choose the wildcard. Last year there was only one wildcard. This year there will be (I guess) two.

29

Who was the wild card last year? Was it RJ?

30

If I’m not mistaken, the judges get one wildcard, and the audience gets one wildcard.

I didn’t watch last year, but I think the final group was 30 people, the audience voted 3 in from each of the three groups of 10, for a total of 9, and then the judges had the one wildcard.

31

Well, i watched the first few weeks because it was like a car accident - so awful you couldn’t take your eyes off it. Now it’s just boring. I wanna see more useless no-hopers having their dreams smashed on national television. The final rounds, with a bunch of excessively earnest wannabes with half-decent voices, holds no particular attraction for me.

And what’s the deal with letting the American public choose now that we’re in the home stretch? The American people have demonstrated time and again that they have no fucking idea about anything, especially when it comes to entertainment talent. They should have let the people vote in the early rounds, when it was so fucking obvious who had talent and who didn’t. Now that they are down to 30-odd people, they should leave it to the pros, IMHO.

But i s’pose i’m asking too much from what is, after all, little more than a one-hour commercial for AT&T.

32

As for “Kimberley’s a bitch,” I cannot believe how easily people can be manipulated by some simple film editing. Honestly, guys, you do know this stuff is edited, right? Man, take a media awareness course or something.

Really, the only thing you have to go on is how well they performed in that audition - the auditions were uncut, so you can trust what you saw there. Beyond that I sincerely doubt anyone has any idea what they’re like as people; the editing choices are deliberately made to create “Stories” where none exist.

33

And apparently the number of people who can be that easily fooled by editing and a big set of knockers is greater than I had believed.

Advancing are Julie Demato and Charles Grigsby. Well, Charles was a good choice, anyway.

34

Wow. Julie was not even in my top 4. She looked horrible, and, though she does have a nice voice, sang that song awfully. Ah, Kim, we hardly knew ye.

35

Kimberly is a little bitch. I’m glad she’s gone. You had to see how snotty she was to Julia, shelbo. She was very smug and dismissive. She just comes off like a self-absorbed, spoiled little brat. I hope like hell she misses the wild card and has to go work at Target or something.

36

Julie looks horrible? I don’t know who you were looking at, she looks mighty fine to me.

37

Yes, RJ was the wildcard last year.

And as far as the results show I totally disagree. Charles, okay. But Kimberly should have advanced before Julia. She has more talent, more projection, a better stage presence, a better voice overall…What a shame. Hopefully she’ll get through the wildcard round. She deserves to be in the top ten.

38

No, Ejay was the wildcard last year … I think.

39

I take back everything nice I ever said about Kim. Her behavior was bugging the bejeebers out of me tonight. I still like the way she sings, but I can’t stand her. What a faker. The judges seem to luurrrve her, so she’s got a good chance at the wildcard.

I’m happy for Charles. He seems sweet and does have a nice voice. I predict he won’t make it very far in the next stage, but I’m happy for him.

Julia? Ecch. I thought that she did a much better job with that song tonight than last night, though. Maybe she was less nervous?

I’m sorry Trenyce didn’t make it. I liked her a lot.

Next week should be interesting. I definitely like Kimberley Locke, and barring catastrophe, she’ll get a vote from me. I like Clay and Ruben, too, but I’m interested to see these others that we haven’t heard much from.

40

No, Ejay was brought in when they kicked some other guy out for lying about his age. RJ was the wildcard that the judges chose. I remember being surprised that they chose him, because Simon always stated that he found him boring, and he wasn’t Idol material.