American Idol 2006--Live Thread I

FOX ^ | 1-16-06

[silent_jonny]

for Tammy

[napscoordinator]

1) Chris
2) Elliott
3) Gedeon
4) Taylor
5) Will
6) Ace
7) Bucky
8) David
9) Sway


1) Elliot
2) Chris
3) Ace
4) Giddeon
5) Will
6) Taylor
7) Kevin
8) Bucky
9) David
10) Sway
I thought Taylor was not too good this week. Hopefully he will improve. Will did good because of the whole judges situation which was really funny and I believe made a difference for him as far as votes for the week. I think you underestimate Ace. He will survive for quite awhile until he is voted off. All of this is just my opinion which means absolutely nothing...LOL.

[retrokitten]

First, being the posterchild (woman?) for ADD I can't believe I read that whole thing.

Second,

Look folks, we already had the painful John Stevens experience 2 seasons ago where his fans in NY kept him unbearably on and on and on forcing him to do songs that made him look like a fish out of the water ( remember the embarrasing CROCODILE ROCK in Elton John night ?).

You won't have to worry about people from IL, specifically the Chicago area, voting for him like NY did for Jon Stevens. Years of exceptional political corruption and big guys with no necks and a baseball bat coming to the door saying, "Yous gonna vote democrat this year, right?" has left most of us totally apathetic towards all kinds of voting.

[retrokitten]

I tend to agree with you. At first I thought they may be fake, but when I took a really good look at the first picture, I saw that the dress has some kind of criss-cross ribbon thing that goes all over the bodice. The bodice itself is also kind of like a corset and that compresses everything.

Paula has struggled with bulimia for many years, so maybe she was just going through a rough patch and got a little too thin.

[Wolfstar]

LOL! Your list reminded me of Kevin, who I forgot to put on my list. So I need to revise mine to pigeon-hole him somewhere.

1) Chris
2) Elliott
3) Gedeon
4) Taylor
5) Will
6) Ace
7) Kevin
8) Bucky
9) David
10) Sway

My list only reflects my opinion of their latest performances, not where I think they will wind up in the competition.

I have a much harder time ranking the girls. Based on this week's performances, I put Mandisa and Kellie at the top, with Lisa and Paris next. After that, I didn't like any of the performances.

[retrokitten]

The women this year are very forgetable. It's not fair that it has to be 6 men/6 women in the top 12. The women will drop like flies in the top 12.

[Palladin]

Thanks for that little bit of insider dish. I really like Elliott. He has a very pleasing voice, and is so unassuming. I think he will definitely make the top six men.

[Palladin]

kev, I agree with your critique more than anyone else's today. TG I am not the only one to find Chris Daughtry's vocal quality less than sensational. And his appearance--well, let's just say he's a mini-Bruce Willis.

IMHO, Elliott has the superior voice. He just needs coaching with his presentation and confidence level.

Gedeon needs a little more polish, but again, his voice is much better than Daughtry's.

Will has a fine voice and a good personality. He should make top six.

Taylor impresses me as a borderline personality. Nice but quirky. That shouting out and the herky-jerky movements detract from his performances.

Ace is just another pretty face. Too tentative and too girly.

David, Sway, Bucky, and Kevin will all be going home, either tonight or next week.

[Wyatt's Torch]

How big of a fan base do you think Elliot has? If the dialidol results are close to being true, his fan base might not be big enough.

[Palladin]

>>>In my opinion....women who show that much of their breasts hanging free like that look like cows. It's a white trash look.<<<

Hah! I want to shout "MOOOOOOOOOO!" every time Paula stands up.

[Palladin]

Re: The Girls. Our local reviewer in the newspaper had some interesting things to say about the girls:

"I don't think Paris Bennett will ever receive the wrath of the judges. Some would think this might be in part because grandmother Ann Nesby sat with cat-like eyes ready to pounce on the judges."

"Melissa McGhee might have made her way into the top two for me this week. She took on Reba McIntire's "Why Haven't I Heard from You" and brought back the sultry sound of Lindsay Cardinale of Season 4.

"Ayla Brown followed Paris in her pursuit of the older audience with Celine Dion's 'I Want You To Need Me'. The reaction from the judges was altogether different. They liked her complete turnaround from sporty tomboy to the softer singer she is becoming. She was one who made me re-evaluate my thinking."

[napscoordinator]

Could be true, but I did not catch last weeks elimination show so did he get pretty low votes?

[napscoordinator]

I am having a harder time with the ladies as well. I really like Ayla. If I only go with who I like than it is Paris and Ayla. For the guys it is Will and Ace I suppose. The only problem I find with this years crop is that they are too young. I believe one year they had a much older group and I really enjoyed that (maybe last year or the year before). After tonight I think you were right to forget Kevin (a bit annoying wouldn't you say). Last week it was kinda funny how he was treated but like some say it might be getting a bit old.

[napscoordinator]

"Melissa McGhee might have made her way into the top two for me this week. She took on Reba McIntire's "Why Haven't I Heard from You" and brought back the sultry sound of Lindsay Cardinale of Season 4.


Funny, I found that comparison also which is why she is off my list of favs. It is funny that for some reason I cannot get into her voice or Lindsay's.

[napscoordinator]

Taylor impresses me as a borderline personality. Nice but quirky. That shouting out and the herky-jerky movements detract from his performances.

That is the most truest sentence I have heard in MONTHS!!!!! I can't stand his twitches and belches (it's as if he has all this air that he needs to get out of his body) as I call it. AND quite frankly he does not look like an American Idol to me and I know they come in all shapes and sizes, etc, but come on do you think America is going to pick somebody who looks 45?

[retrokitten]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I implore you...

[SirLinksalot]

Just got this interesting bit of information from a blog site dedicated to Taylor Hicks regarding predicting which contestant is most likely to be voted out :

---

« Taylor Interview from WadePredicting the American Idol results via busy signals - flawed methodology? Or maybe not?
So there is an interesting website called Dial Idol ( dialidol.com) that allows users to download a speed dialing application for American Idol. Assuming the application works as advertised (not verified by me) that makers attempt to predict the final results based on the number of busy signals the dialing application receives per contestant.

Clearly the assumption is that if you receive busy signals for your favorite contestant - you can be sure that others are voting for them. While I was highly skeptical that this made any sense a little investigation yields some interesting results.

What are the predictions for this week?


Higher numbers indicate the busiest lines, Taylor leads by a landslide in popularity - but can this be right?

Performer % Busy
Taylor 37
Ace 24
Chris 19
Will 17
Gedeon 14
Kevin 9
Sway 8
Elliott 7
Bucky 7
David 5

On their own website the operators say . . .

How accurate are the predictions?

That depends on the number of people running DialIdol. With minimal data during the last 6 votes of season 4 DialIdol was about 65% accurate including predicting who would win. With extensive data … well we’ll see!

If you read the following analysis you’ll see that the above statement is, well, mostly incorrect.

While we here at Gray Charles are pleased with the predicted results we were heavily skeptical that it was reliable so we contacted our friendly neighborhood statistician. Here is what he (my brother) had to say (take a deep breath).

First, a few definitions: The ‘population’ is the total number of all calls made, regular and computer dialed. In this case the population is 40 million calls. The ’sample’ is the cases selected for computer-aided dialing. In this case x (the percentage of all calls using dialing software) times the population yields the number of cases in the sample–let’s call it ‘y’, the total number of computer-dialed calls.

It sounds crazy, but the percentage, ‘x’ of the total is not critical in and of itself. It’s just the total number of cases ‘y’ in the sample that’s important. Thus if the population is really big–i.e. 40 million calls–’x’
can be really small and you can still end up with reliable results. Thus, it’s better (statistically) to sample 1% of 40 million calls than 50% of 400,000 calls. So, although ‘x’ is important in establishing the total number of calls ‘y’, I can’t give you a ‘critical’ figure of ‘x’.

Also–and this sounds crazy, too–the relative proportion yielding a positive result is important too. You’ll have more confidence in the estimate (narrower confidence limits) for an individual with a busy signal rate of about 50% than an individual with a busy signal rate of 10%. So even if they have the same number of attempted calls, each contestant’s confidence limits will be different. You’ll have to work it out for each contestant based on their busy signal rate and the number of calls placed for them.

Here’s some examples:

Candidate A: 20% busy signal, 500 calls. Confidence limits are 20% plus or minus 3.4%. Put another way, we can be 95% confident that the ‘true’ busy signal rate for Candidate A is between 16.6 and 23.3%.

Candidate B: 15% busy signal, 500 calls. Confidence limits are 15% plus or minus 3.1%. Put another way, we can be 95% confident that the ‘true’ busy signal rate for Candidate B is between 11.9 and 18.1%.

Candidate C: 5% busy signal, 500 calls. Confidence limits are 5% plus or minus 1.9%. Put another way, we can be 95% confident that the ‘true’ busy signal rate for Candidate C is between 3.1 and 6.9%.

Candidate D: 20% busy signal, 5000 calls. Confidence limits are 20% plus or minus 1.1%. Put another way, we can be 95% confident that the ‘true’ busy signal rate for Candidate A is between 18.9 and 21.1%.

Note that although candidate A and D have the same busy signal rates, the confidence limits are much narrower for candidate D. You can be reasonably sure that candidate D will receive more votes that candidate B, but not so sure that candidate A will.

Lots of assumptions here to be fair - we’ll be reporting more on the American Idol phone system structure in the upcoming days.

Bottom Line - Dial Idol maybe onto something here - at least in the early stages in predicting who stays and who goes. You have to look at margin of error to see how accurate the predictions are but for now, I think the David, Bucky, Sway and Elliott (wft? Elliott) might want to watch out.

Questions, comments, concerns? Simply freaking out?

Let me know.

[misterrob]

If elliot gets sent home before the top ten then this show has absolutely no credibility. The man can sing. He's not going to make the final 4 but if he cannot get people to vote for him with his singing talent then thats screwed up. I guess that will go a long way in showing the demographics of the show.

[Wolfstar]

The women this year are very forgetable. It's not fair that it has to be 6 men/6 women in the top 12.

Hi retrokitten. I agree with both of your points. Although several of the girls have a degree of talent, none of them are really outstanding, in my opinion.

As for the 6x6 rule, I much preferred the competition the way it was the first couple of years. Let them all compete head-to-head so the best possible talent makes it into the top 10 or 12 instead of an artificial quota.

[Wolfstar]

I don't think Paris Bennett will ever receive the wrath of the judges. Some would think this might be in part because grandmother Ann Nesby sat with cat-like eyes ready to pounce on the judges.

I agree with the gist of this point, except I think it's Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the rest of their class of pimps who are ready to pounce.

As for grandma and whatever other adults have overtrained Paris and turned her into a 60-year-old in a teenage body, they should back off and let the kid be a kid.

[Wolfstar]

I am having a harder time with the ladies as well.

Smile...I'm glad I'm not the only one. Although several of the girls are talented, as a group they are boring and predictable. I think Chris, Elliott, Gedeon and Taylor all bring something fresh and a little unpredictable to the competition. I find myself wondering what each of them will do from week to week.

Ace has shown himself to be very limited both vocally and performing, at least so far. He's good to look at, though, even if he is too girlish. But in the end, what matters to me is great performing skills combined with solid vocals. My ideal would be a combination of Josh Gracin's macho manliness, Clay Aiken's voice and Bo Bice's performance skills.