The Idol producers did a press conference yesterday for journalists to talk about “The Next Great American Band.” I’m on the lookout for transcripts! Anyway, Rodney Ho of AGC.com, asked a few questions about the Atlanta auditions. He posted a few interesting tidbits on his American Idol blog.
Five years ago, 46 people from the Atlanta “American Idol” auditions made it to Hollywood. Last week, only 49 people were even trotted before Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. (We don’t know how many made it to the next round.)
Lythgoe said that this isn’t necessarily a reflection of less talent emanating from the auditions. “We’ve been very very picky this year. We’ve just cut out a lot of crazies. The truth is once we have them on tape, we can use them in montages. It seems silly to waste the time of the real judges.”
Of the seven audition cities this year, he said San Diego was the strongest while Dallas was the weakest. “With Kelly Clarkson the only big star out of Texas, it’s truly the Lone Star state,” he joked.
And this:
He also repeated an earlier comment that “Idol” next year will focus more on personalities, less on guest stars and “Idol Gives Back” and Sanjaya’s hair and such.
Less crazies? More Talent? Featuring the contestants instead of guest stars pimping their latest whatever? Giving up on Emmy bait cause they probably will never win one anyway? It all sounds too good to be true. Really, it does.
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I’ll be interested to find out, MJ. What will they do on those audition episodes if they’re not focusing on the crazies?
Interesting that Nigel can’t pass a press mic without saying Sanjaya’s name these days. Usually deragatory, but hey Nigel, thanks for keeping Sanjaya’s name out there.
Maybe you should consider mentioning your WINNER once in a while? She’s got an album coming out, remember? She’s gonna need all the help she can get.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
It could go the other way and we’ll be drowned by the sob stories and a decided lack of real talent it certainly looks like that with the X Factor this year.
That doesn’t mean they won’t waste our time and try our patience with endless montages of crazies. I hope they cut out some early audition footage and show more of Hollywood this year, maybe even try to (gasp!) the entire top 24 or 44 actually singing at some point before the semi-finals start.
Bring It On!!!!!!!
That’s what I’m thinking, too, and I’m not really looking forward to that. Surely there has to be a middle ground somewhere.
Now that I’m thinking about what Nigel said - I bet only the craziest of the crazies actually get through to the judges, just so they can get some good Simon comments. The others probably get cut at the producers… like Nigel said, that is enough footage for montages.
I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that Beyonce came from Texas so therefore Kelly is not the only star from Texas so maybe Texas should be renamed the mutiple-star state since I am sure there are many more singing stars from Texas.
^
I’m pretty sure he was referring to “American Idol stars” only.
The blink of an eye and Hollywood is over approach of last year was the beginning of a poorly produced season. Hollywood, to me, is the best part of the whole audition process. So yeah, what cheese said…