Posted on 05/14/2004 8:51:58 AM PDT by sathers
Hawaii's 1.25 million population completed a total of 1.23 million calls in their two hour voting period (6 hours behind East Coast Time) a large portion which were for Jasmine Trias says Kevin Laverty of Verizon Wireless.
That's 24,000 more than New Jersey which has seven times the population. Overall, Hawaii logged more calls than all of Verizon's 29 coverage states except New York and California in the post-Idol hours.
Though the island votes helped Jasmine Trias, they make up a portion of a national total that may top 25 million. Other theories abound about how the vote veered so wildly from the consensus of judges and qualified observers.
Many AI Folowers believe children and teens, who are more likely to be passionate and prolific voters, lean towards their own age group, which includes Diana DeGarmo and Trias.
Some fans appearing to be casting votes against caustic judge Simon Cowell. When Cowell ripped John Stevens, voters kept him. On Tuesday, Cowell told Trias everyone in Hawaii would need five phones to save her.
The question of racism: Much the same as when black women Fantasia Barrino, LaToya London, and Jennifer Hudson were in the bottom three, some fans wonder whether color is affecting votes.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.com ...
You have to watch the whole show? I don't even know when it's on. I've just watched the news clips.
Fantasia is kind of a 'one note' singer, and she could be doomed in the finals with a song not up her alley.
Fortunately, the results don't matter at all at this point. Most of these kids are going to be offered recording contracts of some sort. They all have their foot in the door now and they'll all do well.
It won't matter either way. When many people found out Mariah was a quarter (like myself), people were STILL saying she was a white girl singing black. BTW, I don't think she's anything but white otherwise the media would have dug that up a while ago (unless they don't care). If she wins,exactly what you say will happen, at least where I live.
Why do you like Jasmine? (Just curious.)
As for Ruben, he is intrinsically a very likeable guy. None of the three divas this year are anywhere close to him (or Clay) on the Likeability Chart. Of the remaining gals, Jazz and Diana are both very very likeable with Diana having a huge edge in the Chops Department. Jazz needs some serious training to help her overcome her pitch problemos.
There's one other factor that isn't mentioned very often - the singers in this competititon that are used to the acoustics of being on stage with a very loud house sound mix and used to singing with cues from the foldback speakers are the ones that are singing the most in-tune. Some of the younger ones, lacking that experience, have been at times woefully out of tune because they don't know how to hear themselves in such situations. Every good singers can easily be tricked by the sound system into over-compensating for perceived pitch problems.
Michael
All the people who voted for Jasmine also bought William Hungs' CD..
Has anyone stopped to think that having two black singers divides the black vote by half?
Seems simple to me. The blacks vote for the black girl, the hawaiians vote for the girl from Hawaii, and the rest of the people vote for the best singer.
I do watch the entire show. It's a lot of fun. But I voted some last year but not at all this year. The most involved in voting I got was the very last show. I dialed for about 30 minutes, trying to vote for Clay. I never got through. Prior to that, a couple of times I skipped over who I thought was best and voted for who I thought might be at risk. I wonder if that happens a lot.
You didn't ask me but I like her because her voice is "different."
Re LaToya, try closing your eyes when she sings. She is not distinguishable from any other singer you hear sing black gospel in a church. She didn't stand out.
And they're the same crowd this show is supposedly marketed to.
Willie Hung was #30 something on the Billboard charts last time I check..
La Toya was the best singer of the competiton overall, even the crew applauded her efforts last week.
The "system" is broken because of the ballot-stuffing. It cannot be hard for the computers to only record one vote from each phone number each week. (If you're feeling generous, allow one vote per contestant to allow for voting for multiple people.)
It might also be an interesting idea to allow the judges to "save" a contestant in the bottom three prior to the loser being announced. The "saved" contestant would be sent back to safety while the remaining contestant with the lower total is booted. There would have to be restrictions: at least 2 judges would have to agree and each contestant can only be "saved" once. Once the final three are set, then the judges would have no more say in the matter.
I was at Wally World on Weds., and on the omnipresent TV monitors I saw one William Hung pitching for Wal-Mart. He has indeed found at least a temporary source of income.
Michael
I guess I'll have to watch the end then. I would have voted for Clay though. I like his singing.
On the contrary, I think she has excellent tone and remarkable control. I think her biggest weakness is a too-professional attitude, both in a little bit of a "cold" personality and that she never laid it all out on the line for a single song, as if she was saving herself for the rest of the 90-minute set.
I think they need to switch to a vote-against system. That is, vote for the person you want to see off the show.
The dirty little secret is that you can vote an unlimited number of times VIA AT& T text messaging on a cellphone, which probably accounts for the age bias (tweens with the technology)
You can still restrict that to one vote per mobile phone. This cannot be that hard to implement -- if they wanted to.
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