Posted on 05/21/2003 4:24:46 PM PDT by pbear8
I have no explanation for that. Did you get the voice in the midst of dialing, or after you got through?
Actually, he does, because the whole country latched onto both Ruben and Clay months ago. Go look through old news clippings on Google if you don't believe it. Ruben was given the best odds from the start, and while Clay got nuked early on, he was brought back for the wild card show and had improved so much so fast that he was put into the final 12. From that point the vast majority of viewers had always though it was going to come down to Ruben and Clay, unless Kimberley Locke improved enough to get past one of them (which she almost did).
I will never understand why nobody here is able to comprehend that the reason "the judges wanted" Ruben and Clay to make it to the final two is because they thought Ruben and Clay were the best two singers of the twelve finalists ... just like a majority of viewers did.
If you can't stand Ruben's singing, fine. If you can't stand Clay's singing, fine. But taste is a personal matter, and the fact that more people than you (universal you, not you specifically, MM) chose Ruben over Clay, or Clay over Kimberley, or anyone over anyone else, is not a conspiracy.
MM
That is NOT what Simon said. He said the exact opposite: "America got it right. This was talent over image." (Keep in mind that the two contestants on stage were a very overweight guy with goofy dimples and someone who looked like he had to take a leave of absence from the presidency of his local chess club in order to compete, both of whom were amazing singers. Referring to them as "image over talent" wouldn't even make sense.) And Simon has been using the phrase "this time, it's talent over image" since the very first episode of the season. He was obviously less than impressed with the set of contestants they got last season (with very good reason, IMHO), and wanted people with serious pipes this time, regardless of what they looked like. And that's what he got.
Well, if the fact that Clay and Kimberly Locke out-sang the pants off Ruben isn't enough, the fact that Clay's single outsold Rubens by such a margin that Clay's was number 1 on amazon.com while Ruben's was number 386 might have told many something was up. That can't hide under the heading of "one man's opinion". That's fact. That's popularity.
Also, the fact that the phone lines went down in Clay's home state on voting night while Ruben's brother voted 350 times should tell us plenty too.
If I had to bet money and there were a way to get to the truth, I'd bet money that the voting was fixed. There's no doubt in my mind. Either Clay or Kim should have beaten Ruben.
Well, if the fact that Clay and Kimberly Locke out-sang the pants off Ruben isn't enough,
That's not a fact. It's an opinion. And it always will be. There are people out there that think their dogs should have recording contracts, and will never be convinced otherwise. It is fine for them to hold that opinion, but it's not something that can be objectively measured. If it were, the entire concept of phone voting would be pointless. They'd just take everyone that showed up for an AI audition and hook their microphones up to a computer that would "objectively" determine the 12 best, and then let them try to improve each week enough to come out on top at the end.
It wouldn't matter if 50,000,000 people all said Clay was a better singer and only 15 voted for Ruben. It wouldn't matter if the numbers were exactly reversed. It would still only be an opinion. Is Elvis better than the Beatles? I believe the top selling single of all time is Elton John's treacly rewrite of "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Diana; does that mean he's the best singer EVER?
the fact that Clay's single outsold Rubens by such a margin that Clay's was number 1 on amazon.com while Ruben's was number 386 might have told many something was up.
I just looked at Amazon. Clay's number 1, but Ruben's #2, not #386. And since both singles are still PRERELEASE, the numbers reflect nothing but how quickly word's gotten out about each single. Howard Dean is by far the most popular RAT presidential candidate online, purely because the RAT geek crowd prefers him. Put him with the other eight RATS and ask the general public as a whole, and he's drawing a whopping five percent and fading.
I would venture a guess - and it's only a guess, I'm not going to claim it's objective fact - that Clay tends to appeal more to the teen geeks out there than Ruben does, just as a lot of overweight people are damn happy to see that at least part of America can ignore Ruben's weight and judge him on his singing. Thus there are likely more Clay fan sites, who spread the word more quickly about Clay's single. Thus it got to the top sooner. That can't hide under the heading of "one man's opinion". That's fact. That's popularity.
No, it's a few people's opinion. It's statistics and spin.
Also, the fact that the phone lines went down in Clay's home state on voting night...
...while Ruben's brother voted 350 times should tell us plenty too.
Yes, it tells us text messaging != phone calls.
It's cool. Like I've said in other posts, we're just shooting opinions around. I do want to answer a few things in this post, though, after which I'm Idoled out for a bit. (Unless you want to say more; I don't insist on having the last word.)
They picked one contestant and set him above the rest. They constantly treated him as the headliner, the star, the main attraction.
I fully agree they were doing this. Simon flat-out admitted it in a recent magazine article. I just don't think it's deception. They thought he was the best of the bunch, and said so repeatedly. They're professionals, and they were there to judge. So they did. Unless it was provably coupled with fraudulent manipulations of the actual vote totals, it doesn't matter. How well the contestants could themselves manipulate the audience is part of the game. (I personally think Josh lasted a lot longer than he should have purely because he learned very fast two very important lessons: How to play to the camera, and how to either suck up to the judges or dismiss them smartly in front of the audience when they slammed him.) And the judges didn't always get their way; that one week when Ruben was in the bottom two and Josh was safe, the night after Josh had given a just DREADFUL performance, Simon was visibly angry and made his feelings quite clear that "America had screwed up" and that Josh "does not belong on that couch tonight and he knows it." Could Simon's outburst have affected the next week's voting? Sure. But Simon said roughly the same thing about Josh's performance the night before and the public still saved Josh.
I also think Clay is an absolute master at playing the camera like a violin, but his singing itself is so good that it was only a minor factor in how well he did vote-wise.
If so, they would've used the same camera angles of Ruben's gathering as they did of Clay's. They didn't.
Personally, I thought it was extremely obvious that Ruben's gathering was only a few hundred people at most in a small church rec room, while Clay's gathering was in a giant arena. (They openly admitted this on the show, by the way.) But I thought if anything, it was Clay that got the preferential treatment on this, because not only did the announcer at his gather offer up a specific attendance number (somewhere around 8,500 - 9,000, if I recall correctly), you could also tell in one shot - because you saw a giant section of empty seats off to the side for just a moment - that they'd all been herded in the same section to make it appear the entire stadium was packed to capacity, when in reality it was only 1/5 or 1/4 full at best.
(I'll also point out that the voting had been over for 18 hours or more before the show started, so in terms of results, it didn't matter one bit.)
There's also a very real issue on the phone lines when a Ruben voter (his mother) was able to place 205 votes Tuesday night...
Ruben's mother was probably text messaging her votes. Far fewer people were doing that, and people choosing that option were not experiencing any congestion.
while Clay voters from all over the nation report dialing for three hours and getting through one time, or a scant few times, or NO times.
Ruben voters all over the nation reported the same thing. Including myself. I tried for a solid 90 minutes, and sporadically after that, to vote for Ruben. I never got through a single time.
Wish I had caught the final show now.
Go Ruben ! ! Alabama !!
Better late than never...Sorry..I wouldn't vote for James Brown as a great vocal talent either.
He was entertaining...but not a great singer.
No scandal.
When the judges intentionally color their remarks for the sole purpose of steering results, instead of acting in their capacity as professional judges and saying what they really thought about a performance, I call that deception. Simon admitted doing this the week Kimberley was voted off, but he admitted it via a Newsweek article that a relatively tiny number of people would read, not during the show when the voting public could have the benefit of the truth. When they knew Kimberley blew Ruben away, and praised him anyway while restraining their praise for her, I call that deceptive. Again, he essentially admitted to doing exactly this.
On Ruben's mother's votes, I was under the impression that she said she successfully voted 205 times via the voice lines. If there's something saying it was text messaging, I haven't seen that. Not saying you're wrong, only that this is the first mention of that I've heard.
And to clarify, from my perspective this is far more about the viewers than about Clay. He's gonna be fine and have a wide open career shot if this is what he wants, and he will no doubt be in far better financial condition than I will in the immediate future.
MM
At least you know what 'American Idol' is. ....The only thing I know about it is that it's a television show.
Ehhhh ... I'm not sure Julia ever really forgave her ... I think she just did it so as not to come off as petty before the millions of people she needed to vote for her. And Julia never had ANYTHING to apologize to Kim C. for.
That's MY conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it. *grin*
You HAD to feel sorry for Kimberly Caldwell when Carmen Rasmusen beat her out. That was ridiculous.
Nope. I couldn't stand Kim C. Even putting aside the Julia thing, I still didn't like her. Far too "barbie doll" in appearance for my taste, not particularly better than Carmen in terms of singing ability, and a professional IMHO who shouldn't have been allowed into the competition in the first place (this was the THIRD time she'd been a competitor on a national TV talent show). Just not my cup of tea at all.
Now Carmen ... mee-yow! Even if she can't sing all that great.
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