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Can you handle it??? There’s all kinds of goodies in store for the upcoming season of American Idol.
Officials are reporting that some major changes are coming:
- Singers will be allowed to showcase their other musical talents, such as guitar playing.
- Fewer “mentors” (think Diana Ross and Tony Bennett) – apparently they took too much attention away from the contestants.
- Next summer, the “Idols Live” tour may be combined with the “So You Think You Can Dance” tour.
- The Hollywood phase of the show will include something different this year.
Here are some more details:
“We’re bringing about 160 people back to Hollywood at the end of this month,” says “Idol” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe.
Keep reading after the jump!
“We’ll bring everyone there, and the judges will spend four days with them and bring the list down to the top 24 contestants – 12 boys and 12 girls.”
The seven-city audition tour ended late last month with a few standouts, Lythgoe says.
“There are one or two that stand out – there are three girls who are superb, including one girl we saw three years ago who wasn’t an American citizen [and is now] and we’re happy to have her this year,” he says.
“And we’ve got one or two guys who are really good.”
Lythgoe is busy producing his latest Fox show, “The Next Great American Band,” now and hasn’t seen much “Idol” audition footage yet.
“I’m literally going into the edit suite [this] week,” he says.
The Hollywood phase of the show will include something different this year.
Hmmm… I would love to see the Idols be allowed to use instruments (as is the case with Canadian Idol and Australian Idol). I don’t know how I feel about combining the tours.
Sound off – what do you think?!?!?
Tags: american idol, season 7, american idol 7, american idol season 7, instruments, tour, so you think you can dance, spoilers
wow !
1). i personally don’t think its fair to let the contestants showcase other musical talents. i mean, if someone can play a bunch of instruments and another person is just a good singer, who do you think will look better ? (but i know, it will be more entertaining for the show to display more musical talents..)
2). i definately hope they do not combine the tours, or i will definately not be interested in going…
3). why all of a sudden all the changes ?! i thought american idol was an amazing show before everything starting changing… i hope this season is still as good, because this is my FAVORITE show ! i’d hate for it to change so much that it’s just not the same…
xomegg – I liked seeing contestants with instruments on Canadian Idol this year and Australian Idol and I haven’t found the instruments keep people around any longer than anyone else. I had the same reaction as you, at first though, but when I saw it in action, I realized that it wasn’t that big a deal
Combining the tours is a HORRIBLE idea in my opinion!
I think they are making changes because the ratings really took a beating last year. I hope it doesn’t become unrecognizable but I think it should be okay.
I wonder what they meant they’re bringing about 160 people to Hollywood.
I agree Jeanne. Canadian Idol was still fine with some playing instruments.
i guess i’ll have to see a season of it before i like it or hate it.. i haven’t seen canadian or australian idol.. but if it doesn’t keep anyone for a longer period of time, then i guess it could be cool.. i’m just saying since i wanted to audition for idol, & i can’t play instruments, it didn’t seem fair at first reaction
oh, and i TOTALLY agree with the combined tour, since im a HUGE fan of american idol and i don’t really watch So You Think You Can Dance…
and yeah, what does it mean about the 160 people in hollywood week ?
Loving the more attention to the contestants. I loved the contestants of season 6, I think they have great personalities, they didn’t get to show them as much though.
Wow…big changes.
I think the changes are coming b/c of how last season went. The tour did not do as well as in the past so i guess that is why they are trying something different. But, the tour didn’t go well b/c of how the season went. The season didn’t go well b/c of the voting process. That is what really needs to be changed. If they change the voting so that it is fair, then in turn the tour sales will do well. Most people I spoke to that did not attend this years tour said it was b/c people that had strong voices and should have made it to “tour” status didn’t make it yet the contestants with the weakest and even horrible voices got through…thanks to Vote For The Worst. If the voting doesn’t change then even if they combine the tours, they still won’t do well. They need to look at the root of the problem and stop pacifying it.
As for the instruments…it sounds a little sketchy to me and I have to agree with xomegg. I have a bad feeling that the American voters are going to lean more towards the folks that are muti-talented. I mean anything can happen though, it will definitely be interesting to see, but unfortunately this country does not have a good reputation for voting fairly.
We shall see though
It would help if they just had more unique talents instead of looking for cookie cutter characters, not that it is any different.
About the ratings, they were desirable by any show, last year did very well. The problem was that instead of increasing ans the contestants decreased, as it usually did, the ratings actually fell as they reached toward the finale interestingly enough, the fall started after Sanjaya left. A lot of people thought Sanjaya ruinewd the show, but, in fact, he was pretty much the point of interest on the show.
One problem that the show had was the attention on the non-mentor performers on the show just to be on the show (Akron, what a role model!) meant that the more interesting video on the contestents were saved for on-line, but very few people go to the web site to watch video.
I really think the mentoring has gone down hill recently. It was amazing to see the difference that Barry Manilow made when he took off a week to work with season 3 performers, including custom arranging their songs. More of that would be very welcome!
Combining the tours of SYTYCD and AI, yes there is an overlap of fans, but not that much – such a bad idea, it can’t even be put into words.
Instruments whatever. The instrument we are still judging is the voice.
Choosing from more people in Hollywood? Eh, it is more work for them, not my problem.
One thing that they have been doing for years is that sing off of the top 24 and to me, that just makes the season way too long. I know that people got screwed by the stacking of the groups in previous years, but this is just too many weeks of singing, I think it wears out the contestants because it just lasts and lasts.
I like the instruments idea. I like them showing more of the contestants backgrounds. I loved “So You Think you Can Dance?” but not everyone likes both shows so I don’t think that will work for everyone.
The changes that REALLY would help the show is limiting the amount of times you can call!! Most of the other shows for fans voting have a limit now. Those idiots on Vote for the Worst, can screw up the results so I would like to see a voting limit 24 votes for night #1 and then have it go down to like 5 or 6 for the finale. JMO..
daugtryrules- I definitely agree with you about the voting. The voting on AI is terrible. The folks that don’t care for the show ruin it by voting for the worst one as a sport. It’s unfair to the other contestants. I think they should change the voting system to mirror Dancing With The Stars.
american idol organizer must be specific what are the criteria of this singing contest. if it`s singing contest or total entatinment that includes, dancing, playing musical instrument. in my opinion if they do expand the criteria this will just complicate the whole concept or set up of this program.
u all suck