Q&A With Brian Mansfield and Richard Rushfield
The Q&A with Brian Mansfield of the USA Today Idol Chatter blog and Richard Rushfield of the LA Times (soon to be the West Coast Editor of Gawker, beginning August 31) will begin at 12:30 pm EDT.
Here’s how it will work–you guys submit the smart, probing questions, I’ll release them to our guests who will answer them. Feel free to answer follow up questions!
Both Brian and Richard have some big changes going on in their Idol world. Brian just launched the brand spanking new version of the Idol Chatter blog, with expanded features, including a forum. And Richard is set to move on to an exciting new job–as West Coast editor of the online celebrity blog, Gawker.
Plus, after you’re done chatting with Brian and Richard, head on over to ainow.tk, where a chat with some former Idols, Felicia Barton, Kendall Beard, and Nathanial Marshall looks like it will be quite lively. Apparently, Junot Joyer is unhappy with his Idol experience, and is promising to spill some juicy details. He claims that Ken Warwick is “running Idol into the ground”. Good stuff!
Replay the live blog after the JUMP…
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Ju’Nut he is going to marry a lawyer.Well she must not be a good lawyer to let him go off like this.You cant get any better break then a chance on AI.You sell your life for 1 year for it.What gives anyone of 100,000 that try out the right to think they should get a better deal?He gets his own lawyer to say what?Won’t sign unless you let us put out a album right after he is cut.He was well liked but now if he puts a hit out will he be on AI singing it.I think not.You can’t buy a better spot to sell your music right now.Being bitter i understand.Being stupit i dont understand.”Slavetract” How much work for them has he done since he got voted off.Sounds like he has been working for himself.He paid the price now he is done with that next month.If he didnt pay that price i wouldnt be writing this,he got what he paid for.
Dont understand why he didn’t want that on the show.I do understand why david cook or scott from this season didn’t want some of the stuff out.How you grew up is part of who you are.
Adam was a chorus boy in Wicked and understudy for the lead. And I believe only got to meet and get advice from Madonna, after the show ended. Monte didn’t pass along Adam’s fanboy messages to Madonna before then. And here is my point which I think Rushfield seemed to miss, yes, Adam was in LA and by it’s very nature, one has a chance to see other famous people and talk to them. But he despite all of his hard work and being in the center of the entertainment industry, wasn’t “getting discovered.” Which isn’t to say he wasn’t talented. Just that it’s a hard business period and actually being in LA means there are TONS more people competing with you. Adam was living in crappy apartments, doing retail jobs at times, having to have money sent by his parents to get food/pay rent. It’s no less rags to richier than Kris’s. Just because Kris came from some small town, doesn’t make his climb any more, or less, steep and harder than Adam’s. Just different. And Kris wasn’t just some naif. Just like Carrie Underwood actually wasn’t before him (who Rushfield also cites in his article). Kris recorded several tracks, he was performing rock gigs. And Adam with his stage experience, actually had a strike against him because of it. Certainly with people like Simon and TPTB in the past, it has been. And Adam himself said, he had habits to unlearn from his stage work. Whereas Kris didn’t have do unlearn that at least, with his experience.
Adam’s experience of being in a big city and struggling to get noticed, pay the rent, is no less or more to the heart of America, and the intent of AI, than Kris’s story is. Other than that Kris came from some small town in the South, and Adam was struggling in a big city, which yes, happens to be the entertainment center of the world. So gee, the show, once again, gave the title to some small town Southern person. Yawn. That doesn’t mean the show has more heart to me. That just tells me the show is doing the same old, same old. I personally would have been much more heartened to finally see some coastal and/or Northern, big city person who had a different kind of experience, win. Rather than yet another people like last year’s winner of Cook and this year’s winner of Kris were with their similiar rock band, small Southern town, experiences/life.
Again, one of the only parts of the Rushfield’s chat today about this, and point of his article that I agreed with, is that the show, though not in the rest of reality, made Kris an underdog and that is a very appealing story. But outside of the show, Kris is not an underdog compared to Adam. So another point I agree with from today’s chat (and overall), is that the show needs to tamp down it’s pimping/dismantle that ramp, or the shark, she shall be jumped. Because newsflash, 18-49 hetro white Christian males are not the underdogs. Or as my friend likes to quote from the Simpsons, “I’m a white male between 18-49, everybody cares what I think!”
Please don’t rehash past history in this thread.
Once this thread strays off the topic and enters fanwar territory, I will shut off comments.
Thank you Truthiness and Fifth House Sun! I always wondered how Adam was not considered an underdog story from the get-go. An openly gay, jewish musical theater singer (a genre and type of contestant openly mocked and dismissed by the judging panel and producers in the past, especially Simon and Nigel) getting on the show was a surprise to me. I, too, would have liked to see another type of winner’s story this year. I’m perfectly happy with Kris’s win, not only because I think that Kris is definitely talented, but because I think the show gave Adam what he needed in order to get any type of contract or music industry notice…a following. As talented as I think Adam is, I think he needed AI much more than people think he did. I don’t think he would have ever gotten “discovered” because his open sexual orientation would be too risky for some music industry suits to take a chance on.
Maybe next season we’ll get a different kind of story, but I doubt it. As the reviewer said after the Memphis (?) show, there’s a certain “true American Idol demographic” and I think winners will more than likely fit that niche than anything else.
Well keeping it to the chat here, and the only reason I referenced Rushfield’s article at all, is that it was specifically mentioned in the chat today by someone and he commented on it, but personally, I don’t think anything will change. I mean, I hope it will. As Brian Mansfield said, and I think he’s right, they are building a ramp to jump over the shark with all their bullshyte pimping. I personally think they only managed to avoid that this season with all the focus on the judges and ALL the crap that was going on, by somehow managing to find some really appealing people (especially Kradison) in the process. If they continue the fuckery they did this year (and yeah, getting rid of Paula and keeping Kara of all people while doing so) they better REALLY be lucky with their talent or suit up Fonzie.
This is a very interesting Q&A . Just two comments:
a.Regarding no one crying over eliminations : I think R.Rushfield missed the picture of Allison’s elimination. The broken hearted Adam and the very sad face of Kris. The photo is posted everywhere, I think even headlined here in MJ’s. This was the picture that my brother a retired military officer who just watched Season 8 because his daughter commandeered the remote said that – this Adam is not only glitter and glam but he sure does have heart.
b. I agree on their concern about the contracts going high with the ratings dipping : Seems to remind me of the trouble in US Baseball when the player’s contract got to be astronomical that the league could not afford the salaries . In this case , we are even talking about the Judges and the host and the management – not even remuneration for the contestants or players -. I do not think the viewers were ever cheering on the judges. A big overhead cost to hurdle for the show.
I agree. And, I also believe he needed the pimping, even with his immense talent and superb performances. As Adam said himself, that allowed some people (who may have been hesitant) to support him and feel it was ok to do so.
I didn’t agree with Rushfield’s “heart” analysis either, nor that Adam seemed too “cool” so not the right “AI story.” But I don’t disagree that quite a few people (in the AI voting demographic) likely viewed it that way.
Maybe OT, but I miss Ken Barnes and his comprehensive numbers reporting. Brian disappoints in that department.
I feel so cheated. LOL. I have been a regular here forever, checking in almost every day. But of course, the week I take off all the good stuff happens. Boo. HA!
Great chat. Looks like it was a lot of fun.
Looks like it was a fun and interesting chat and MJ was great at moderating it. Interesting comments and personal perspective. Some things I totally don’t agree with, but others I do.
I missed it. I did see the notice when it was already in progress but I was also doing other things. I’d love to see a chat with Slezak and Cantiello. I’m sure it will be fun and entertaining.
I just got done reading the other chat log with Ju`not, FELICIA BARTON, and Kendall Beard. What a treat. The juxtaposition of the 3 of them is quite interesting. The girls know how to play the game and are much more mature.
Absolutely thrilled that Felicia is recording and opened for David Cook on a VA show. Just got done watching a youtube from there and she looks and sounds great. It sounds like she has a contract in the works on some level and we’ll be able to get her music when she’s released from the AI contract next month. She’s been writing and recording in Nashville.
One thing on Ju`not that I know is truthful is the contract situation. A friend’s son made it to Hollywood week in season 5 and she was furious that he signed the contract without legal advice or even a copy of it. He never got any face time, but he couldn’t even sing in church for a year …. and I mean sitting in a pew singing, not a member of the choir.
Forget Ju`not getting robbed, I think Felicia did. But her husband’s internet blogs may have targeted her for elimination. Hard to guess.