One of the things I love most about American Idol is tracking all the numbers generated by WhatNotToSing.com. Now that the Top 24 have completed their performances they have the numbers up for both the guys and the gals. And I just love analyzing numbers to no end. What I was most surprised of was that the difference in average rank between the guys and the gals was so small. As a whole I thought the ladies sang quite a bit better than the gents, but WNTS has the girls up by only 0.1 (52.8 vs 52.7) When you sort all 24 contestants by average rating you actually find 5 guys and 5 gals if you grab the top 10, and most of the top contestants are who you would expect:
My biggest surprise there, and a pleasant one at that, is that Lauren Turner is at #6 ahead of such popular folks at Lauren Alaina, Paul or Scotty. I thought she actually sang quite well, but was afraid that her image and personality was not as likable as some of the others. I was also surprised Karen ended up #10 since I thought she performed an okay rendition of "Hero" but it only made me want to hear Mariah sing it! I had thought Kendra or Naima might rank a bit higher than her.
I find it not very useful to listen to Steven Tyler and J-Lo as judges since they do not do much judging, and are primarily just "praisers" except when the performers really stink it up. I guess Randy now has to be the "new Simon" who actually critiques people. I want to see how some of the overly praised contestants react when they have to take some negative feedback or constructive criticism (especially Lauren A and Thia.) I think that would be interesting to watch.