David Archuleta - Season 7

[roses4me]

Originally Posted by Broadway

So have we all..... so have we all....

Speak for thyself, I like Taylor above all the others.

[Google]

 

[Leo]

Originally Posted by Broadway

And, if you are going to wait for American Idol to make an official statement of CONFIRMATION, you are going to be waiting a long, long time. There is absolutely no way the company that is Idol can make an official statement saying "yes, we banned Jeff Archuleta because he is a pain in the butt and he cost us X dollars because of his arrangement" because they would be getting into some legally sensitive areas that might potentially be grounds for interfering with the outcome of a competition/game show by influencing public opinion. You are not going to get your confirmation. Not even after the show ends, I am willing to bet.

Not just that, but the version of events that's coming out isn't favorable to AI itself, so they'll never confirm it. To me, it looks like no one backstage had the balls to lay down the law and stop Jeff. I doubt they would have banned him if this was the first strike. Why didn't anyone go to Jeff beforehand and say, "Stop. We're not going to be bullied around by you. It worked with everyone before, but not with us. If you don't like it, tough."

I do concede, however, that it's possible that someone at AI did do that, and we never heard of it. If they did, then Jeff is an even bigger moron than I thought.

[calamari]

Originally Posted by Leo

Not just that, but the version of events that's coming out isn't favorable to AI itself, so they'll never confirm it. To me, it looks like no one backstage had the balls to lay down the law and stop Jeff.

A shortage of balls is a much kinder explanation than the first one that had sprung to my mind, which was that TPTB tolerated stage daddy as long as they thought he could deliver to them a malleable and marketable musical commodity, jettisoning him only when he cost them money. I'm glad of a less morally ambiguous way of looking at it; would be gladder still if it's all a tempest over nothing much. While I'd like to see Archuleta gone at this week, this whole scenario leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's the kind of drama where your choices are "cynically manufactured fuss" or "kid too young to defend himself gets hurt badly." Which do you feel good about watching?

I get why TPTB want 'em young and want to go after the lucrative tween audience and all that... but TPTB might want to ask themselves if part of the decline in female viewers 18-34 has something to do with the painfulness of watching Archuleta (who comes across as barely out of childhood) turn greener and tremblier every week as he's pushed toward singing love songs he doesn't seem to understand. If it weren't that I'd endure an hour of combined sumo wrestling, monster-truck stunts, pie-throwing, and stupid people swallowing worms if I were promised that David Cook would sing, I don't know that I'd have held out this far in the season.

Here's hoping for "cynically manufactured fuss"...

[AsIs]

Something occured to me today. Jeff getting banned is a nicer outcome than the alternative. I would bet that David A could be disquailifed for using a unapproved song in his performance. Getting permission to use a song is a big deal. It's not that Fox had to just pay for another song, they had to pay for violating a copyright on top of the song payment. It would be hard to believe that use of songs is not in the contract they sign.

[Driew_La_27]

Originally Posted by AsIs

Something occured to me today. Jeff getting banned is a nicer outcome than the alternative. I would bet that David A could be disquailifed for using a unapproved song in his performance. Getting permission to use a song is a big deal. It's not that Fox had to just pay for another song, they had to pay for violating a copyright on top of the song payment. It would be hard to believe that use of songs is not in the contract they sign.

Well it was Jeff that put the thought into David's head to do that line, so if Jeff wasn't there we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place

[DetGuy]

People keep talking about how young he is and that he's "a kid", but we have had 16-17 year olds on AI before and none have seemed so emotionally stunted and awkward as David A. He can barely string together a sentence. Jordan was light years ahead in maturity compared to him. Its really off-putting to me.

[AsIs]

Originally Posted by Driew_La_27

Well it was Jeff that put the thought into David's head to do that line, so if Jeff wasn't there we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place

In this case, Jeff and David are a package. The contract is Davids with Jeff as his guardian. David could be disqualified for singing those words. He most likely won't be, but I would bet contractually he could be.

[talldede]

And speaking of contracts, you better believe the word "recoupable" will be in there.

[Driew_La_27]

Originally Posted by DetGuy

People keep talking about how young he is and that he's "a kid", but we have had 16-17 year olds on AI before and none have seemed so emotionally stunted and awkward as David A. He can barely string together a sentence. Jordan was light years ahead in maturity compared to him. Its really off-putting to me.

Actually during his homecoming he was more open and talkative then he has been on AI. Even his producer was commenting that David seeing all his fans has resulted in David being more talkative and more life-like.

In this case, Jeff and David are a package. The contract is Davids with Jeff as his guardian. David could be disqualified for singing those words. He most likely won't be, but I would bet contractually he could be.

AI would NEVER kick off a contestant for changing a line. It cost AI chunk change (probably 100k or so). Them banning Jeff was just a warning that if you do this again David you're gone. Or if you change an entire verse you're in big trouble.

But ya I see what you mean in terms of contractually being eligible to be disqualified.

[mbcrowder]

What line did David change? I can't find that.