February 18, 2004

Round 1, Week 2

Good grief. This group sucked. "What the hell is up tonight?!" I have scribbled in my notes next to the seventh singer, Camile, who was okay by the evening's rather pathetic standards, but still too pitchy.

I don't think I even want to dwell on the details. Marisa and Lisa were the best of a bad lot, but neither would have stood a chance in last week's group. Camile probably came in third. And Briana... I'd had hopes for Briana; she was one of two performers I'd been rooting for in the prelims, the other being Scooter Girl. The difference was that I knew Scooter Girl wasn't going to make it very far, while Briana actually seemed to have a chance. Her performance was okay, for what it was, but... a Norah Jones song? What was she thinking?!

The results show's on as I type this (I usually have class on Wednesday nights, but due to Presidents' Day, today is officially "Monday" at school), so I'm gonna put off publishing this till I see what happens...

...Camile and Matthew? He so got the sympathy vote. (Not that, under the circumstances, I can object to that. Had I finished watching this in time, I might've tried doing the same for Bri.)

Ah, whatever. It's not as if any of them really deserved to advance. The two who did make it ought to thank their lucky stars and work on their acts over the next few weeks.

Posted by Shmuel at February 18, 2004 9:01 PM
Comments

as i've been telling people, you know they are going to have to have 6 men and 6 women. soooo, a little tinkering and they finally have a guy out of the four slots. even though the judges have all admitted that the women are far stronger than the men, just you wait and see. there was no way that it shouldn't have been lisa (the best) and marisa with camille maybe.

Posted by: tekay at February 19, 2004 11:18 AM

I'm willing to grant that the groups of eight probably weren't randomly selected, but were designed to make certain results more or less likely, and that the producers have a huge opportunity to impose a fudge factor in the wild card round: they get to stack the deck with any performers they want, and -- if last year is any guide -- the judges will directly select three finalists. With that said, I don't think they'd go as far as to tinker with the voting results, and I think this week's results are plausible without resorting to that as an explanation.

I do think you're right in that gender played a role. I know that if I'm faced with a close choice between a male contestant and a female one, I'll go with the woman nine times out of ten. It stands to reason that there are others out there with the opposite predisposition. And of the men, Matt was the clear top choice; he was laid-back to the point of being boring, sure, but he wasn't actively painful. None of the other men could say the same.

This probably wouldn't have been enough had there been a really good performance or two on the women's side, but there wasn't; even the best singers were merely okay. There wasn't a single performer for voters to rally around, just a fuzzy cluster of Marisa, Lisa, and Camile being not as bad as the rest. I figure the three of them got a bunch of dispersed, half-hearted votes, leaving Matt the chance to sneak in on personality, sympathy, and his Y chromosome.

(As I said in my entry, I quite possibly would have given my vote to Briana this week if I'd finished watching the tape in time to vote, even though she didn't strictly deserve it. Had there been a single really good performance this week, I wouldn't have considered doing so. When you can't get motivated by the singing itself, all sorts of other factors can come to the fore.)

Posted by: Shmuel at February 19, 2004 12:32 PM

Chris and I also voted for Briana. We had such hopes for her, even thought her song choice sucked a big fat one.

I'm so mad about Lisa. She clearly blew everyone out of the park.

Posted by: annie at February 20, 2004 11:24 PM

i think dat camile sang bad, her voice is different n dats wot i like about it.lisa sang dat chaka kan sng wicked so much power n enjoyment i was exellent . i wanted camile n lisa 2 go through cos i dnt think dat d football player dun gd. but my girl camile is still in n i hope her n fantasia get 2 d end.

Posted by: alicia at February 21, 2004 9:40 AM

I really wanted Bri to make it....she is good, just didn't choose the best of songs to show herself off....I really hope she makes it into the wildcard group....not to mention she's hot...

Posted by: me at February 22, 2004 11:58 AM
Due to the proliferation of comment spam, I've had to close comments on this entry. Sorry!