American Idol/YMMV: Difference between revisions

----

* [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]]: Why does this need to be mentioned again?

** Joshua Ledet of Season 11. Most viewers agree that he is talented, but the judges give him a [[Character Shilling|Standing Ovation]] almost every time he sings and act like he's the second coming. [[Hype Backlash|Some think that this may have led to him leaving in third place.]]

*** Steven recently called him one of the best 2 contestants of all time. [[Kelly Clarkson|Fans]] [[Carrie Underwood|disagree.]]

**** And that isn't even going into Jennifer Lopez saying he was one of the best artists she had heard in the last 50 years, period.

* [[Ear Worm]]

* [[Elimination Houdini]]: The aforementioned Sanjaya Malakar, among others. Vote For The Worst plays a huge part in this.

*** And those were exceeded again with Season 4's Anthony Federov and Scott Savol. Both of them were in the Bottom 3 more-often than Sanjaya AND Tim.

* [[Ethnic Scrappy]]: Before he was eliminated, Heejun Han was devolving into this. There have been others such as Tatiana Del Toro, and Jacob Lusk (who acted like a [[Sassy Black Woman]]).

** Also on the list is Season 10's Karen Rodriguez. She was one for singing parts of her of songs in Spanish; fans did not take well to that.

** SOUL PATROL!

** To be fair, it did introduce the world to [[Lucy Hale]].

* [[Harsher in Hindsight]]: After he was reinstated as the thirteenth male participant in the top 25, Ryan gave him code number 36 instead of 13 because [[Thirteen Is Unlucky]]. Oops.

** Also in Season 11, Elise Testone sang Queen's "I Want It All"; she was eliminated the next night.

** She also later opened for Jackson.

** The multiple online pictures of him kissing men didn't help, either.

** Season 2's runner-up Clay Aiken, who finally came out after adopting a child, saying that he didn't want to raise a child with a lie. Nobody was surprised, mainly because the guy was in ''[[Spamalot]]''.

* [[Just Here for Godzilla]]: Many watch only the audition phase to see the candidates fail.

** Additionally, more than a few people watch the show just to see their favorite judge.

** Bikini Boy as well. [[Fan Disservice]] nonetheless, but also a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].

** William Hung is a shining example of Memetic Mutation gone too far.

** Some thought Paula became this amongst the judges. Whacked-out more often than she was sober, desperate to have everybody like her, and obviously attracted to the (much) younger male contestants, she was less like a judge and more like a bad comedy skit sitting between Randy and Simon.

** Phillip Phillips of Season 11 is considered one by many for having a much weaker voice (with very little range) than pretty much every other member of top 13 and only winning due to being [[Mr. Fanservice]]. He is also the fifth white guy (with a guitar!) in a row to win the title.

*** However, once it was revealed that he had undergone ''eight'' kidney stone-related surgeries during his run on the show, even some of his most hardcore haters became a little more forgiving.

** In Season 11, it was announced in-season that Tommy Hilfiger was going to show up to give the contestants makeovers (read: for the sake of [[Product Placement]] as part of a sponsorship deal) and "help" them pick out clothes every week, and the next episode he and a lackey appeared in segments criticizing the contestants' clothing and re-dressing them in different (i.e. Tommy Hilfiger brand) clothes, and within the first episode was already starting to annoy fans.......

* [[Seasonal Rot]]: Once the producers decided to highlight the [[Dreadful Musician|Dreadful Musicians]] during the audition round and push the contestants that actually make it through off-screen (unless they have an interesting story), everything went downhill. Part of it was because bad singers started to realize that, by pretending to be outraged when they're told just how bad they are, they'll get on television. Made painfully obvious in Season 7, when one of them almost forgot to feign outrage, going from taking it well to perhaps the worst rant ever.

** Then again, that's also about when they split the guys and girls up for the Top 24, reuniting them for the Top 12. Rarely has that worked well, as Season 4 (the first season with this split) should've made obvious -- after initially getting eliminated as the seventh-place male, Nikko Smith got into the Top 12 when Mario Vasquez left the show <s>because he already had a record contract</s> for personal reasons... and proceeded to outlast three of the top six females before again leaving before any of the other males. One week later, it was down to five males and two females. Not that this mattered in the end, as Carrie Underwood won out -- rightfully so.

*** The "sudden disqualification due to a prior contract" struck again in Season 9, when the Hollywood Week episodes showed a contestant named Chris Golightly making the Top 24...and then when the Top 24 were turned over to America to vote on, Chris had been replaced by Tim Urban.

** On the other hand, one possible reason for [[Seasonal Rot]] was that they got it right the first time. [[Gone Horribly Right|A bit too well, actually]]; by finding a ''legitimate'' talent in the form of Kelly Clarkson, they had a winner that wasn't going to be indebted to them for very long, and soon started battling against the terms of her contract and going off into her own direction. Hence, the gravitation toward failed artists looking for a second chance (almost everyone from Season 7), and the emergence of sites like VFTW.

** It's heavily agreed upon that Season 9 is the worst season ever.

* [[Shocking Elimination]]: Every season has at least one that angers the fanbase:

** Season 1 had Tamyra Gray, finishing in 4th place, who gave a well-received performance the night before. To this day, almost 10 years later, many people still find Nikki McKibbin undeserving of her spot in the Top 3 over Tamyra.

** Season 3 had two: Jennifer Hudson's infamous 7th place finish, which led to that week's mentor Elton John calling the show racist (due to J-Hud, La Toya London, and Fantasia Barrino, who were all African-American, being the bottom 3) since he thought America made a huge mistake. Speaking of La Toya, she found herself eliminated three weeks later in 4th place, over the widely-hated Jasmine Trias, who lasted one more week.

*** Elton's cry of racism was contradicted somewhat, since Fantasia ended up ''winning''.

** Season 4 had Constantine Maroulis, finishing in 6th place, who only two weeks before had delivered a show-stopping rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. He may not have been the most...''liked'' by the fanbase, but it was hard to deny that he was at least more talented than a few of the singers who finished ahead of him.

** Season 6 had nearly gone through the season with no egregious shockers, but then Melinda Doolittle inexplicably finished in 3rd place, despite being arguably better than Jordin Sparks and FAR better than Blake Lewis the previous night.

*** Sanjaya Malakar is arguably an inversion, in that most believe he should have gone home a lot ''earlier'' than his 7th place finish.

** Season 7 had two as well, and it was twice in three weeks, no less. First, Michael Johns was unexpectedly eliminated in 8th place despite being a consistent performer. Then, two weeks later, Carly Smithson got the boot. She had not been ''as'' consistent as Michael, having been in the bottom 3 a couple of times (including the night Michael was eliminated), but she was still one of the early favorites. One can't help but wonder if the fact that Michael was Australian and Carly was Irish had anything to do with their elimination from AMERICAN Idol...

*** Some have theorized that their eliminations were the inspiration for the judges to introduce the "Judge's Save" in the following season, where they could save one contestant from elimination if they felt that he/she deserved another chance. It could only be used once, and couldn't be used after the Top 5.

** Season 10 probably set a record for shocking eliminations. First was Casey Abrams earning the lowest number of votes at the Top 11, but he was cut off by the judges barely thirty seconds into his performance where he was attempting to convince them to save him, where he was told that they didn't ''need'' to hear him sing to decide to use the save on him. Casey is unique though, as he managed to get the lowest number of votes again only 5 weeks later in 6th place despite getting better every week and being far from the weakest the night before. In other words, Casey got screwed in the votes ''twice''. Two weeks after Casey's first elimination came one of the most controversial results since Daughtry: Pia Toscano's 9th place finish, despite being hailed as an early frontrunner. It had come down to her and Stefano Langone, and his reaction to her elimination was priceless; he clearly thought he was going home. Many proclaimed the show to be rigged and sexist, because with her elimination, FIVE female singers in a row had gone home! Sexist, maybe, but [[Fridge Brilliance|when you think about it]], it proves that the votes are 100% accurate, as no one in their right mind would rig it for five female singers in a row to go home. This was somewhat evened out however, as the next 5 eliminations ''were all men'', and the last of which was another shocker: James Durbin, one of the most consistently strong performers of the season, delivering no less than five incredible performances, getting the Daughtry treatment and ending up in 4th place. The problematic part here was that the order the contestants performed the night before wasn't direct to their voting line: the first singer gets IDOLS-01, the second IDOLS-02, and so on. Everyone had two performances that night and while it went normally in the first round, it was skewed in the next round, with James having IDOLS-01 despite performing last. Some who weren't paying attention may have accidentally voted IDOLS-04 for him, which was actually for Lauren Alaina... who was in the Bottom 2 the previous week, and was considered by a good chunk of the audience to have been the weakest on the Top 4 performance show.

*** At the season finale, the contestants poked fun at this themselves: James and Casey argued with each other over whose elimination was more shocking, when Pia walked over to them, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|holding a scepter and wearing a tiara and a sash that read "Most Shocking"]]. The guys instantly stopped arguing, realizing they couldn't compete with her (or, technically, ''she'' couldn't compete with ''them''...).

* [[Straw Man Has a Point]]: Simon took a lot of flack for being caustic and brutally honest in his assessments of the hopefuls, but...well, it needs to be said: some of them are just ''terrible'', and need to be told that.

** With Simon gone, Randy has now been saddled with this. In Season 10 (and to a slightly lesser extent in Season 11), Steven and Jennifer have often seemed afraid of criticizing the contestants too harshly, with Steven telling virtually ''everyone'' "Your voice is beautiful!" and J-Lo openly weeping at every elimination, which leaves Randy to play the bad cop role and give the contestants some constructive criticism. Predictably, every time Randy begins giving some constructive criticism, the people in the audience start booing Randy and shouting "We love you, [Insert Name of Contestant Here]!!!" Randy then has to explain--apparently to no avail--that he's just trying to be honest and give some helpful feedback to the contestants.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:YMMV]]