X FACTOR SEASON 3: PRELIMINARY SPOILERS

Below the jump...

IDOL CONTESTANT SINGING ABILITY VERSUS SONG CREATIVITY

So I recently wanted to analyze the trends between how far Idol contestants made it relative to their singing ability and song freshness/creativity factor. I'll explain more in detail later, but for now, toy around with the complete set of data I made, exclude several seasons or placements, and see how the trends hold up. I'll elucidate in more detail later. The higher the placement value, song creativity factor, and the singing ability, the better.

AI12 ALGORITHM-BASED POWER RANKINGS, WITH EMPHASIS ON SONG CHOICE

So for the first official post of AI12, we're going to analyze the forward momentum of the contestants with a heavy emphasis on song choice/creativity. In other words, do an old song? Get docked off. Do a song that has been done a bajillion times on the Idol stage? Get docked off. Performing the song well is only one part of the equation. 

TOP 10 PRE-IDOL/X FACTOR MUSIC, TOP 10 POST IDOL/X FACTOR MUSIC

So we've always wondered about the sort of under the radar music that everyone loves pre-singing competition shows and post-singing shows. Through the help of youtube and past spoilers, I've re-surfaced these videos, and made my ranking of the top 10 pre Idol/X Factor and top 10 post Idol/X Factor music. Enjoy.

ANALYZING THE FORGOTTEN WGs OF IDOL IN EPOCH 3

So, as we've already established in Epoch 3, we've had a ton of WGWGs win. But what about the remaining WGs that were cast by the wayside? It might be constructive to see what brought the eliminations of these WGs, to see if there could be "strategic" casting of WGs in the future. Since this first occurred in Epoch 3, we'll analyze the ones found in Epoch 3. We'll only focus on the ones who got eliminated outside of the top five, because if they're in the top five, clearly the audience favors them.

PROGNOSTICATING IDOL'S FUTURE, BASED ON CURRENT TRENDS, PART II

Continuing the series from Part I, we now focus on how the competition (both internationally and other domestic singing competitions) have affected Idol. Hint: it's not good.

PROGNOSTICATING IDOL'S FUTURE, BASED ON CURRENT TRENDS, PART I

So, as we've effortlessly established here, Idol is a downward slope. Their declining ratings allowed their competitors to smell blood and spawn more singing (karaoke?) competitions, both of which started in 2011 (ahem, X Factor USA and The Voice). But for Part I of this article, we'll only focus on how Idol is shooting themselves in the foot in affecting its future. In part II, we'll focus on how Idol's competitors might screw up Idol's contestant pool and contestant success in future years.