JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum American Idol Finals

Kevin,

It's interesting how folks often seem to "know" something very surprising ahead of time, but don't speak out about it until after the fact. The human mind has a lot of revisionist thinking in it.. just saying... if you're going to suggest you saw the biggest surprise in AI history coming in advance, you should post it BEFORE the show airs.

I haven't been posting because I have to wait and watch the show with my wife which usually happens a couple days later. (Somehow we've both manager to avoid seeing results so far, which I think is a sign far less folks are talking about it, even if they are watching... just an interesting observation). I think part of the Casey issue might have been everyone's assumption that he was 100% safe. I'd be surprised if he's in the bottom 3 for the next few weeks. If he isn't, then we know it was a fluke. But if he shows up in the next 3 weeks in the bottom 3, then we'll know for sure the low votes are because folks don't like him. I will be the first to admit I didn't see it coming at all, and I am rarely that surprised or off. The save assures most likely Casey is on tour and even if he doesn't win, he needs about 4 more weeks to really sink into to the nations memory and then he can build a great singer-songwriter career from that. There are so few ways to build a career of any kind today that AI seems more like a shot worth taking than ever before. I wish some of our older award winners would try out for X Factor as I think some would do quite well.. but there's such a stigma around TV shows. I say try out, say nothing about it unless you make it on the show. JPF members have done well on these shows including AI the last several years such as last year's winner (who even as a JPF member I frankly did not feel was better than Adam who isn't a JPF member). I want to see the most deserving person win.

Every year in the JPF awards we'll come across a song or album by an artist we think is beyond amazing, but they don't connect with voters and it's always a mystery. I can predict most of the nominees (I'd say about 2 out of 3) early on and the winners about 1 out of 2 times. But now and then something totally unexpected happens and since I see the votes pouring in each round, I know it's fair. One thing is that the voters are not the same week to week. Sure, there's a core, but as much as 50% can change week to week which makes things very unpredictable. I agree they know the final 4-5 very early on and often try to manipulate their insider picks to get those 4th-5th place finishes. If there's actually a close call near the top, they go all out to fix the voting via manipulations and they have so much data to know what works and what doesn't all the way down to clothing and the color of the lighting to improve or hurt votes when it is close.

I won't see this weeks performances or results until a least the weekend, so I won't be reading this after tonight until after I see it. I might post my evaluations, but you'd have to trust my predictions if I make any that I didn't change them based on results.

If Casey was really the bottom dweller, he should be back in the bottom 3 2 week from now and no later than 4 weeks. This week he'll likely get a bounce in votes no matter what he does.

Brian