I caught the BEP's performance on youtube and she did look weird. There are comments about whether she had stuff done. Hard to believe someone so young would get work done. The makeup wasn't so great anyway.

Next week's theme should be interesting: Motown.

I refuse to be duped again. The only time I've seen Motown done right was Adam Lambert doing Tracks of My Tears, and even that was marred by Smokey Robinson's lame explanation for what the song is about. Yes, I realize it's his song, but it can't possibly be about what what he said, and I'm gonig with he was surprised by the question and couldn't formulate his thoughts quickly enough for the camera.

Me: It's a song about someone who's happy on the outside, but sad on the inside.
Him: It's a song about if you could get close enough to see the tracks of a person's tears.

Anyway, the producers, band, and singer will suck the life out of the songs and give us Motown lite with hip-hop-wannabe beats and grooves in a fultile attempt to "update" the sound for today. And if Jacob screws this up, this'll be the moment I just ride out the season rather than being excited by it.

Casey is the only one who gives me any hope he'll come up with something creative. Stephano will do his complementary (but weak) oversinging version of some song to go along with Jacob's oversung version of some other song. The judges will want to see Thia do Jackson 5 (because they see young Michael whenever she sings), but she'll probably do something else for reasons she'll have no clue about, because she had no idea what any of these songs are. Pia will do another perfectly functional performance of some song completely devoid of any soul the song contains. If typecasting holds up, it'd be something by Diana Ross or The Supremes.

We'll see. Obviously I fell out of bed on the optimistic side this morning.

Bought: Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Crystal Bowersox, Daughtry, Bucky Covington, and a couple of others. Not single tunes...the entire CD.

Ostensibly, the idea is to take the BEST singers out of literally thousands of auditions. Many of these "amateurs" have been performing professionally for years, whether in musical theater, in bar bands, in solo careers, or busking in the subway station.

I think the aspect you're referring to is the idea of the producers to clone cash cows by following tried-and-true formulas and finding 'talent' that will jump to the whim of the producers (at least long enough to sell some music & cash in on tours). Having such young participants...especially the teens...and then expecting them to show originality is asking a bit much, IMHO.

How much $ do you wanna bet that the Motown arrangements sound exactly like the originals. Except Casey will scream the lyrics rather than croon.

I really doubt that the judges are going to use their ONE AND ONLY SAVE this early in the competition.

Sure they are going thru the motions of having a "discussion" while we eagerly await the verdict. Having the contestants believe that there is a slight chance of them being saved -- is that really necessary??

Agree with the first two voted off. Karen had nothing special really and having her begging in tears just made for some awkward moments -- or fun TV, depending on your point of view.

I can see them using the save (if necessary) only AFTER 5 contestants left.

Whenever they try to 'make Motown sound fresh' I always feel like they somehow make the songs sound like bad 80s rejects. It reminds me of when Motown tried to capitalize off Michael Jackson's Thriller fame and put out an album of previously unreleased songs with cheesy synth beats added to them to make them sound 80s. "Farewell My Summer Love" was the most prominent one.

I think Idol would be better off giving them original songs to work with. That way we and judges don't have to compare them to the original artists and the kids don't have to do third rate versions of the songs and they can't karaoke it either. Afterall, the winner has to tackle original songs eventually and the viewers would be able to get a preview of a song before it's released on an album.

Very good! You're letting your money do the voting. The whole voting by phone is a weak system, especially in the earlier seasons. In season 2 I do recall the phone lines going live while Aiken was singing his final song which had to cost him votes since his fans would be watching him perform.
I've bought some too, Aiken, Underwood, Clarkson, Lambert and even two releases by Rasmusen of all people. The wife picked up one of the early compilations, I think for season 2.