Clearly, I should write my weekly American Idol assessment and then throw it out, picking names out of a hat to determine who stays and who goes. It is becoming completely unpredictable, at least if like I do you think that the results should be based on who sings the best, not who the 11 year-olds like.
It is becoming more and more a popularity contest and less and less a singing contest.
I’ve got to stop watching this trash. My friend Susan in Vermont said that if David Archuleta wins, she’ll stop watching. Hell, I might stop watching regardless, as enough voting travesties have already been perpetrated this season to last for time immemorial.
Tonight, Carly Smithson got the axe, completely out of whack with her performance on Tuesday night. In fact, she and Syesha Mercado, whose acts I rated #1 and #2 Tuesday night, wound up in the bottom two. This sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me or to anyone else who has ever listened to and appreciated music.
Brooke White deserved to go. She screwed up her song, forgetting the lyrics and having to re-start it. The judges were decidedly unhappy with her. She must have one helluva fan club out there to keep her going.
I dispute the conspiracy theories that are emerging now—that votes are being manipulated by the show’s producers in order to boost ratings. Perhaps I’m naive, but I believe that it is more likely that voters are more or less tacitly committed, like Democrats, to vote for one of their own—you know, the “if Hillary is nominated, I have to vote for her” brigade. God help us if one of Brooke’s fans should think she screwed up enough to cast her vote for Jason. But Jason has a fan club of his own. Whose fan club is the largest? Probably David Archuleta, who is a good singer but is getting to be boring. I don’t think I could listen to a whole CD filled with his stuff. Yet, it is almost a foregone conclusion that his fans will make him this year’s American Idol. Sucks, and it takes the edge off the competition for me.
Next week is Neil Diamond week. Will Archuleta be the “Solitary Man?” Will Brooke do “I Am, I Said?” Will Jason do “Sweet Caroline” to the accompaniment of his new ukulele? Tune in Tuesday night and see the remaining five go through the motions on the way to Archuleta running away with the whole thing.
I think.
The Redhead says
Turkey, I think the results are fixed. Producers are notorious for those types of manipulations. Read about the so-called “Real World,” on MTV. AI needs more buzz and it’s getting it by favoring the worst over the best in competition.
What a sham.
The Nittany Turkey says
If they were misrepresenting the votes, the news of it would undoubtedly leak out. Something like that could never be kept quiet. Someone would sell them out for personal gain and it would be all over the entertainment news and the tabloids before a day went by.
I could be totally naive, but it is my firm belief that people are voting straight out their ass and the cockeyed results are representative of nothing more than high-school popularity contest voting. How else would you explain Clay Aiken and Taylor Hicks?
I suspect that when it gets down to the top eight, the gap between the bottom and the top vote getters narrows considerably. Thus, it becomes a matter of whose fan base is more persistent or has faster fingers.
I won’t waste my time reading about the so-called “Real World.” I’ll just languish in my ignorance of the complex operation of nefarious Hollywood conspiracies, while I celebrate the cluelessness of the American voter.
—TNT