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8trackmind wrote:

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People keep talking about "what the judges want" as if it is some unchanging entity, determined mostly by who was in the previous season's finale and top 10. However, what they want in the FALL (when the auditions are held) can change drastically by the LATE WINTER (when the semifinalists go live). The difference? By the winter, the first CDs by the previous year's winners have come out. And if Kris' and Adam's CDs both flop, the judge could find themselves having once again concentrated on finding white guys who sing whitebread pop or rock, and then wanting something else.

Season 8 was not only dominated by guys, it was positively misogynistic. Kara's influence, maybe? She sure doesn't like other women much. Or perhaps it was the relative success of the 2 Davids (1.8 million CDs combined sales, distinctly more than the top 2 of the 2 previous seasons)? But I suspect that if they could, the judges would have picked Matt, Anoop and Ricky from the Wildcard and had 9 guys and 3 girls. And bad female Wildcard selections aside, they were amazingly nasty to the women they did have. Alexis got dumped as fast as they could, Allison wasn't properly appreciated till well into the finals, and even Lil (the only women they seemed to want in the finals at all) got overly criticized at the end.

They desperately need to go back to the top 24 format next season. Talented women having off nights like Mishovanna and Kendall got shafted by the format, along with talented guys like Ju'Not and Nathaniel (he's almost as much of a drama queen as Tatiana and looks like he's Diana Degarmo's sister, but he may have had the best voice of anybody in the semis). Meanwhile, non-singers like Scott and Michael got voted through. The whole thing was WAY too prone to manipulation by the judges, which is of course why they changed it in the first place.

I suspect we'll see better women next year, simply because it's almost impossible not to. Even leaving the judges out of it, the women in semis groups 1 and 2 systematically self-destructed to an incredible degree, with horrid song choices and performances. Group 3 women did better overall, but the judges were determined that only Lil would make it through, so none got picked for the Wildcard. So next year I am hoping to see some better white women, maybe even including a few that DON"T have model type figures. It's also possible, though not likely, that Idol might pick some good black guys for the semis and then not treat them as a joke on the show.