Hello everyone,

If you happened to rate performances Tuesday night, I might not have logged them properly.  Please rate the performances again!  I’ve added Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect to the ratings form, which will allow you to track all your ratings and predictions over time.

Thanks again everyone!

I’ve added a Twitter feed to the far right column, so I can communicate my quick thoughts on the American Idol performances without polluting the main blog space.

Check it out, show some love for the blog.

Confession: I’m a big fan of Kris Allen because his singing style is so reminiscent of Jason Mraz, who is also one of my favorite performers.

It’s not only his funk-influenced guitar strumming that I dig.  But it’s also the clarity of his tone.  His voice sounds as smooth as water.  Jason Mraz has that same quality; they share such a pure tone.

I’d love to see them perform together in the future.  What a combination of guitar awesomeness that would be.

After reading various blogs and blog comments on this week’s performances, I felt very disappointed with my fellow Idol viewers.  Overall, their comments felt very snarky, and sometimes bordering on rude.

I know snarkiness has become the norm in this internet (because after all, isn’t that the only way to get noticed?), but are the negative comments really necessary.

I have to echo what Randy repeated on Tuesday: this Top 7 is a really freakin’ talented group of singers.  I enjoy listening to ALL of them sing.  I can’t say the same about previous seasons!  To me, this is the best season since the Chris Daughtry/Elliott Yamin/Katherine McPhee/Taylor Hicks season.

With the exception of Lil Rounds (who sadly does sound pretty karaoke), every contestant put their own spin on very, very, very formulaic disco songs.  I enjoyed their interpretations of well-known classics, and I think they all deserve much kudos.

I don’t understand why people care about Kris’s facial ticks, Danny’s goofy dancing, or Anoop’s 5 o’clock shadow.  This is a show about MUSIC.  Don’t you wanna listen to good, well-sung music?  That’s all I want from my American Idol: good songs performed by good singers.  And on Tuesday, that’s exactly what I got, and I loved it.

Maybe I’m annoyed because I happen to like disco music (even if it predates my birth).  Am I the only one out there that actually likes this genre???

Based on our user’s predictions, people believe that Anoop Desai and Matt Giraud will be going home tonight.

And our users believe the third person in the bottom 3 will be Lil Rounds.  Which would be identical to the bottom 3 last week.

Not surprisingly, Adam Lambert is everyone’s prediction to win.  I was curious about how popular he is, so I did a Google Trends search on the three front-runners (Adam, Allison Iraheta, and Danny Gokey).  Click here to see the obvious but interesting results.

After the show, be sure to rate each Idol’s performance!

After 6 weeks of competition, which American Idol contestant has gotten the highest ratings from our users?

Here are the average performance rating for each of the contestants (contestant name – average performance rating):

1. Adam Lambert – 8.00
2. Kris Allen – 7.35
3. Danny Gokey – 7.20
4. Allison Iraheta – 7.19
5. Matt Giraud – 7.18
6. Anoop Desai – 6.67
7. Lil Rounds – 5.69

The order is not too surprising.  But Kris Allen as the 2nd highest ranked Idol?  VERY interesting.  Honestly, I think he has outperformed the other guy front-runner (Danny), but he doesn’t get the same hype as him. Personally, I think this goes back to how much screen time these contestants received before the Audition rounds, where Kris basically got none.

Can Kris sneak his way into the finals?  Probably not.  I don’t believe he can afford a poor performance the way Danny or Lil can.  Or maybe his looks give him an edge… I dunno.

Side note: I find it interesting that, during the Top 36 round, 4 of the remaining 7 contestants came from Group 2 (Adam, Matt, Allison, Kris).  In fact almost half of the Top 13 (6 of 13 — add Jasmine and Megan) came from that Group 2. And Group 3 was the worst, with only Lil representing for them.  Wow, good group!

Interestingly, our user ratings reflected who American thought were the bottom two contestants this week, with Lil Rounds and Matt Giraud.  However as of Thursday, Anoop Desai was considered the second-best performer this week, and yet still got sent to the bottom 3.  No wonder he felt so disappointed this week.

Here are the performance ratings from this week’s episode:

Rate this week’s performances in the window below! Who did you think was best during Movie Week?

Also, you can directly rate last week’s performances by clicking the “Rate” button at the top of every page.

Thanks!

Here’s an updated look at our Accumulated Performance Order (APO) metric after 5 weeks.  Again, this is the sum of the performance orders each week (e.g. going 1st = 1 point, going 10th = 10 points, etc.).  The higher the number, the more likely the contestant has performed near the end of the show, when voters are more likely to remember their performances.

Here are the APO numbers after the Top 8 Week (max APO = 51, min APO = 5, average APO = 26.5

1. Adam Lambert (40 points)
2. Matt Giraud (37 points)
3. Allison Iraheta (29 points)
4. Anoop Desai (27 points)
5. Danny Gokey (24 points)
6. Lil Rounds (22 points)
7. Kris Allen (22 points)

Clearly, Adam has disproportionately performed at the end of the show more than any other contestant.  Two things to note about Adam:

• The earliest he performed was 5th out of 11
• In the last three weeks, he’s performed 8th of 10, 8th of 9, and 8th of 8

It’s obvious that Adam is the front runner in the competition.  The question is, is he the front runner because he’s better than everyone else, or because his performances are easier to remember because they happened at the end of the show?

The answer is probably “yes”.  As mentioned in a USA Today article last year, the performance order isn’t randomly chosen.  In order to increase ratings, the producers may likely have placed Adam toward the end BECAUSE he would likely have given the best performance.