American Idol, 10 Predictions For Season 11

The wait is over. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m ready to cry. As in I’m excited to get a good cry in while watching good old American Idol! The only thing that makes me tear up more than a two-hour auditions extravaganza is a hometown visit! And sometimes these have those!
Reality TV’s most monstrous truck (sorry, X-lax) kicks off for the 11th time on tonight’s two-hour premiere. Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler, and Ryan Seacrest will be hitting Savannah, Ga. to make some new, young friends and crush some dreams. They all look so cuddly over in that photo that I’m compelled to smush all of their names together for the first and only time. One of my lamer attempts was “Ryandy J. Stépez,” but I think J. Lo would probably prefer “Jennifer Lopez Tylerrandyan,” so let’s go with that. Don’t worry, I will never mention this again.
BIG (blog) news: The awesome and talented MJ Santilli of MJsBigBlog.com is joining forces with EW.com to help cover this season of singing and sobbing! MJ will be hosting EW’s live blogs during every season 11 telecast (Fox, 8 p.m. ET) — starting tonight. She’ll also be helping with some of our Idol galleries, commentary, and breaking news on the site throughout the season.


And while you could chalk that up to the whims (and demographics) of "Idol" viewers, the gender — and relative lack of success — of the show's past few champs does raise a rather interesting point: If anything, "American Idol" has become a show antithetical to the current state of popular music, which has become increasingly dominated by female artists like Adele, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. Tellingly, it's debatable whether any of them could even win "Idol" these days; after all, the last female champion was Jordin Sparks back in 2007, and since then, we've only had two ladies even make the finale: Crystal Bowersox and Lauren Alaina, neither of whom fit the current pop-star mold. If anything, "American Idol" has become a boys club, and while that club has certainly turned up a few gems along the way (Adam Lambert, David Archuleta), it has also very much worked to the show's detriment.


Does that speak to an aging audience, the show's declining influence or both? Are the show's glory days behind it, or can it reinvent itself once again in 2012? Those are all weighty questions — ones that basically ensure I'll be glued to my set all season long ("American Idol" is nothing if not a rather fascinating social experiment, no?). Still, we're talking about a TV show here, so, in an attempt to provide some levity, here are my not-at-all serious predictions for the brand-new season. Accuracy not guaranteed, except for the Madonna one; I'm pretty sure she'll show up and call someone "reductive" at least once this year. So read on, fellow "Idol" aficionados," and hope my last prediction doesn't come true — even though I'm willing to bet it does.


» Early in the auditions, I shall pronounce a bluesy, female singer with a rough-and-tumble background the legitimate front-runner, at which point my wife will discourage me from drinking while watching "American Idol."