Mowtown Week: Top 10 Results

Hello readers!

I apologize for not having this post up sooner! With the shows being delayed last week, I never got a chance to write this on Friday... and then I whisked myself away for a relaxing weekend, and didn't turn my laptop on all the whole time! YAY for setting some time aside to reboot your mind, body and soul. :-)

Anyway... now that its Monday, I'm back in the action... and here is my review of last week's show:

First of all, that group number was APPALLING! Not only was the number lip-synced... but it was also PRE-RECORDED?!?! What? Are you frickin' kidding me 19 Entertainment? Ridiculous. I've been reading different reports and blog entries about this... and the producers have addressed the lip syncing debacle by saying that the time the Idols spend doing other things throughout the week doesn't allow them to focus on the group numbers. Hmmm... but... there is enough time to go to the studio, record the vocal, learn the dance steps, lip sync it, record it (with several takes, I'm sure) and then hand it over to editors to edit it all together? That doesn't jive with me. Just have them sing dammit. If they are on stools, not moving, we don't care. I'd rather see a dance-less live performance than a recorded, lip-synced piece of poo like they showed on Thursday's show.

There's a place for pre-recorded lip-syncing... and its the Ford music video. Leave it there.

OK... moving on...

Ruben Studdard performance = DVR fast forward. Sorry Ruben....

Joss Stone & Smokey Robinson? I didn't fast forward... but I didn't necessarily enjoy it. Why Joss Stone? I don't get it. Smokey Robinson is great though... I give him props. Probably one of the best mentor/celebrity appearances on Idol I've seen. I really like him, and I'm glad he took his mentor job seriously.

Stevie Wonder.... What can I say besides the fact that he is a legend! Pretty awesome to see him still performing (and pretty well, might I add). I didn't really like all the panning on the contestants during Stevie's performance... although it was really funny to see how many of the Idols were trying to sing along to Stevie but didn't know the words! LOL. (Megan... I'm pointing at you...).

OK... so the results.

First to be pulled into the bottom three is Megan? No. Scott? No... its MATT?!?! WTF America? Are you serious? I totally didn't get that at all. Matt was the second best performance of the night, in my opinion. Matt's placement in the bottom three brings to the forefront an age old Idol question: Is singing first really a good thing? Singing in the beginning of the night allows lots of time for people to forget about your performance, not to mention all the people who are still coming home from dinner/work/stuff and haven't yet tuned into the show. If you look back, historically the person who sings last is RARELY in the bottom... (thus called "the pimp spot") and people singing first are.

Examples? Well look at all three of the semi-final rounds. The contestants in the pimp spots all made it into the finals: Danny, Adam and Lil (which is also due to the producers placing them in the last spots, no doubt), but the first singers did not (Jackie Tohn, Von Smith, and the wild-card judges-picked, Jasmine Murray). Also, last week during Grand Ole Opry Week, Michael Sarver went first, and he was in the bottom two. If I were any of the contestants, I certainly would not want to sing first.

There's actually a USA Today article that came out last year about this topic. An exerpt from it reads: "In 69 finals episodes, 20 singers in the No. 1 spot have been voted off, seven more than would be expected based on statistical probability, says Nick Straguzzi, co-founder of WhatNotToSing.com, which collects and analyzes Idol data. In four out of six weeks this season, the first finalist has been in the bottom three, twice being eliminated. "The No. 1 slot is by far the most dangerous for finalists," Straguzzi says."

In terms of the finales (when its down to the final two)... two winners sang first (Ruben & David Cook) while the other five winners all sang last.

SO anyway.... not making excuses for Matt... just bringing some interesting facts to your attention. It was still shocking that he was in the bottom three.

Next in the bottom three is Michael. Not surprising one bit.

So who will round out the bottom three? With Megan and Scott both in the remaining group, I am perplexed as to who it will be. It's revealed that it is Scott. Fine with me. But then this poses a question: More votes for MEGAN than MATT? seriously? sheesh!

When its time to send someone from the bottom three back to the couches, let's just have it be Matt and be done with this madness, right? NO. They send Scott back. You've got to be kidding!!!

Let's clear one thing up first ladies and gents: Just because it came down to Matt and Michael doesn't mean that Matt was in the "bottom two". If you notice, they always announce the bottom three.... but never really call the remaining two "the bottom two". My guess is that the bottom two would have actually been Michael and Scott... but for drama purposes, they threw Matt in the final two to wake people up. You've got to vote people!!!!

THANK GOODNESS Matt stays and Michael goes home. I do have to give Michael credit that he took the news REALLY well and acted like a complete gentleman, as we've come to expect from him. He smiled the whole time, and really took in the experience. I think Michael is a smar guy and he knew he wasn't going to win this thing. He took it all in stride and just enjoyed the fact that he made it as far as he did. That's pretty cool. AND... he made it far enough to go on tour this summer... so that says a lot for him.


So there you have it... a belated, but hopefully interesting recap of the Top 10 results show. Now... on to the Top 9!