**American Idol The Top 3

[tortman]

I really can't stand Taylor. I think he has a decent voice and is somewhat entertaining to watch for comedic value, but he really doesn't have that much charisma on stage as some of you have argued. Having energy and having charisma or strong stage presence are very different things. He has had some good performances, but for the most part, he is painful to watch.

William Hung will have a longer shelf-life than Taylor Hicks at the national stage. We'll all forget about Taylor in 3-4 months.

I also agree that the talent this year has paled in comparison to last year's. Many of the performances from last year were AMAZING. I really can't think of that many in the past 2-3 weeks that were as good as some of the top performances from last year.

I really thought Elliot had a chance to win it all, but I'm sad to say that he got screwed by AI producers.

Oh, and I also hate Paula.

[Nicholasp27]

taylor will not be a 3-4 month star...he will last a long time...he may not be a pop star like clarkson, but many many people like classic rock such as joe cocker...if taylor teams up with good writers/producers, then he could be a modern cocker and have a VERY VERY successful career

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
I really can't stand Taylor. I think he has a decent voice and is somewhat entertaining to watch for comedic value,

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I think people either "get" Taylor, or they don't. The people who get him do not just see him as comic relief. They see him as a singer with a unique soulful voice, and a stage performer who realizes that music is supposed to be fun. When we laugh (like my wife and I did when he gave himself the hug during the "squeeze her!" line in Try a Little Tenderness), we are laughing with him, not at him. Because underneath the crazy antics we see a great talent.

I guess I'm in the same boat, as I don't "get" Katharine at all. She's had more crap performances than good ones, she has zero stage presence, and to top it off she comes across as a spoiled, arrogant bitch. Yet here she is, likely headed to the finale. Behold the power of boobs.

[Jesse Kidd]

I can't tell if people are simply getting emotionally invested with whom they have bet on, or what, but there is some weird stuff going on today.

1.) Dial Idol is only tracking 2 lines, but did have over 800,000 attempts recorded, surpassing last weeks total by over 200,000. There is a bigger gap between busy signal percentages on Katharine's 2 lines than Elliott, so it is possible that the 3rd line lined up more closely with Elliott's other 2, and Kat's 3rd line was an outlier(which either puts her in real danger, or means she was easily in 2nd). That being said, with Kat's presumed large edge in text voting and small edge on the ever-more-accurate Dial Idol, she makes it through to the finals. Having more votes than Taylor...heh. No.

2.) Katherine's chances in the finals are extremely slim, IMO. I'd be interested to hear some opinions from betting minds without money on either contestant, but I'd put her at about at 10-15% chance of winning. I'm not trying to put her down, I would love to be able to arrive at her exact chance, as that would help us all in betting this thing. I just think Taylor is too popular to be beaten unless he has an absolutely terrible performance (again, it's unlikely for him to ever totally "bomb"), and I think Kat did about as well as she could ever hope for with SOTR (these abbreviations make me think of the Star Wars movies..."Sith Often Try Revenge" or something) and still is barely beating Elliott, who was pretty ho-hum. Most of Elliott's voters who continue to vote will move to Taylor, and more and more people dislike Kat each week (whereas, if you hate Taylor, you've hated him for a long time now).

I was most worried about the polar fan reaction to Taylor...people either love him or hate him. I was concerned that a lot of votes would go towards whoever was in the finals with him, purely out of spite. Amazingly, I think Taylor may end up getting more of these "spite" votes from Katharine haters than he loses.

[NoChance]

Jesse,

You and I are polar opposites in what we see out of Taylor and Kat. We are just going to have to agree to disagree as I can tell you are speaking from the heart and truly enjoy watching Taylor. I feel the exact same way about Kat. My two favorite performances from her are "Come Rain, Come Shine" and "Black Horse & Cherry Tree". I've already downloaded them to my ipod and can't get enough of them. I simply love her voice for the same reasons many seem to hate it. The same can be said about Taylor. I hate his performances for the very reasons you love them.

All the best to you. We all have our own tastes and opinions. Like you with Taylor, I just can't see Kat losing. I just get a good deep-down feeling when she sings. I really do love her voice.

[Jesse Kidd]

I hear ya. It's so hard to try and be unbiased on this thing.

If I'm overvaluing Taylor, I want to know about it, because I can change my betting accordingly. It's so hard to bet on something that lacks so many "concretes"(we can't debate Katharine's ERA over the past two weeks, or Taylor's power numbers vs. lefthanders), and stirs up so many emotions and arguments. I guess that is what makes AI so profitable to bet on.

Good luck to you as well, I can't wait for this to be over. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[GrannyMae]

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Has anyone noticed that Kat is just a whisker ahead of Elliot on dialidol? This sort of reminds me of last week when almost everyone thought Kat was as good as dead and Chris managed to get bounced while still being the highest valued contestant on the WSEX market.

[/ QUOTE ]

katherine is from west coast. her strongest vote getting is there. show starts 3 hours later, so the spike was expected. she gets it every week.

[GrannyMae]

**ANNOUNCEMENT**





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WATCH FOR THE RESULTS OF THE COIN TOSS!!!!

IT WILL EFFECT THE FINAL SHOW MARKET.

[Gary Stevenson]

&lt;3 ELLIOT

[ajmargarine]

Man, that was a great back-home video segment with Elliot.