THE PGSC SCORE, PART II: UPDATED FEATURES (GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION, AGE AND GENRE)

This is part II of an article about the PGSC score metric to quantify Idol placement:
PART I: THE PGSC SCORE, PART I: PGSC (PERFORMANCE, SONG FRESHNESS, GROWTH AND CONSISTENCY) VERSUS ACTUAL IDOL RANK

*Part I contains the ranks of the Idol contestants on a season-by-season basis, based on the PGSC score. Think of this as the way the contestants should be ranked, assuming neutral ground and zero pimpage. It is also the way I would rank them.
*Part II ranks the Idol contestants based on PGSC score, according to genre.

I've integrated several features used in previous models to this PGSC score model. Check it out below:



Geographic location is standard: West, Midwest, South and Northeast. There are several contestants that have moved through several locations during their lifetime, but I used their most common location--i.e. Casey Abrams is from Idyllwild, CA rather than from Illinois, and Sam Woolf is from Florida as opposed to Michigan.

Age is separated into the three brackets which I think denotes young, middle age and older as far as Idol contestants are concerned. That's 0-19, 20-23 and 24+.

Genre is a little bit arbitrary, but I chose the genre the contestant presented themselves at during the show. Adam Lambert might have done pop after the show, but for the show's purposes, he was a rocker. There are some which melded genres or couldn't be fit into a specific genre, so for those I lumped them as "hybrid". The categories are hybrid, pop, soul, country, rock, and singer-songwriter.

Instead of using the 8-degree logistic regression in the previous model, I've decided to use a logarithmic regression here, because the general trends somewhat hold even if there is more noise (the trend is more easily visualized).

This pertains to the first graph:

The first thing immediately seen in the model: singer-songwriters have a very high chance of winning, even past a lowly PGSC score of 100, but especially at the 160+ range. They blow every other genre away.

Country and pop, in that order, are the next two genres represented, and then hybrid, rock and soul alternate. My PGSC model tends to hate soul contestants due to the low freshness scores, so the at lower scores they tend to make it farther than they should (i.e. Scott Savol, Jacob Lusk, LaKisha Jones). And there are major diminishing returns in soul--the higher PGSC score the contestant gets, the curve stabilizes into a lower value than the other genres. Rockers surprisingly do not fare all that well in this metric, and hybrids are also a mixed bag.

If were to separate the genre analysis by age bracket, at ages 0-19, country (Lauren and Scotty of AI10 help with this curve), soul, pop, rock, hybrid and country represents in that order. Considering that Jena is a hybrid in this age bracket, I'm not sure if this bode well for her chances here.

At the age 20-23 age bracket, singer-songwriter represents the most, then country, then hybrid, then rock, then soul, then pop represents, in that order.

At the age 24+ age bracket, pop represents the most (but we only have three data points--and Blake Lewis's placement helps skew the curve with a higher PGSC score), and then soul, rock, singer-songwriter, country and hybrid is last.

This pertains to the second graph:

The second graph generates the logarithmic curves with respect to location. If we were to analyze by location, the South and the Midwest yield the highest probability of advancing far, in that order, and then farther off is the West, and even farther off is the Northeast. In the 0-19 bracket, west does the best, then the south, then the northeast, and finally, the midwest (they have only produced contestants in this bracket that have always finished at 8th place).

At the 20-23 age bracket, midwest does the best, by far, and then the south, and then the west, and then the northeast (the northeast has always produced contestants in this bracket that finish in 9th place).

At the 24+ bracket, the midwest also dominates, and then the south and the west are in a bit of a dead heat here, and the northeast does the worst.

In terms of genres, for country, the midwest does the best, then the south, and then we only have one data point for the northeast and the west, but they are ranked in that order.

For hybrid genres, the midwest also represents the best, then the south, the northeast and then the west (but west and northeast are close).

For pop, it's the west, then the northeast, the south and then the midwest (midwest only has one data point).

For rock, it's the midwest, west, south and then the northeast.

For singer-songwriter, it is the west, midwest, and then the south. A key issue is that the west's regression curve is based off extrapolations off Brooke White's and MK Nobilette's data points, so this isn't entirely reliable. Alex Preston will provide a data point for the northeast soon on this.

For soul, the South is most reliable. What's interesting is that midwest soul contestants do really well with lower PGSC scores, but with higher ones, they perform really awfully, even lower than the west and northeast, which are in a statistical dead heat.

Now, here's a ranking of contestants based on genre and PGSC score, for reference:

COUNTRY:

1) Kree Harrison	AI12	231	COUNTRY	20-23	S
2) Phil Stacey	AI6	213	COUNTRY	24+	S
3) Lauren Alaina	AI10	188	COUNTRY	0-19	S
4) Janelle Arthur	AI12	185	COUNTRY	20-23	S
5) Scotty McCreery	AI10	176	COUNTRY	0-19	S
6) Carrie Underwood	AI4	170	COUNTRY	20-23	MW
7) Bucky Covington	AI5	157	COUNTRY	24+	S
8) Casey James	AI9	155	COUNTRY	24+	S
9) Kristy Lee Cook	AI7	143	COUNTRY	24+	W
10) Skylar Laine	AI11	136	COUNTRY	0-19	S
11) Danny Gokey	AI8	110	COUNTRY	24+	MW
12) Dexter Roberts	AI13	98	COUNTRY	20-23	S
13) Paul Jolley	AI12	80	COUNTRY	20-23	S
14) Aaron Kelly	AI9	73	COUNTRY	0-19	NE
15) Kellie Pickler	AI5	57	COUNTRY	0-19	S
16) Michael Sarver	AI8	35	COUNTRY	24+	S
HYBRID: 1) Haley Reinhart AI10 209 HYBRID 20-23 MW 2) Jena Irene AI13 173 HYBRID 0-19 MW 3) Jessica Meuse AI13 169 HYBRID 20-23 S 4) Matt Giraud AI8 166 HYBRID 20-23 MW 5) Crystal Bowersox AI9 154 HYBRID 20-23 MW 6) Casey Abrams AI10 139 HYBRID 20-23 W 7) Elise Testone AI11 129 HYBRID 24+ S 8) Erika Van Pelt AI11 124 HYBRID 24+ NE 9) Majesty Rose AI13 124 HYBRID 20-23 S 10)Michael Lynche AI9 123 HYBRID 24+ S 11)Anthony Fedorov AI4 122 HYBRID 0-19 NE 12) Nadia Turner AI4 121 HYBRID 24+ S 13)Devin Velez AI12 100 HYBRID 0-19 MW 14)Scott MacIntyre AI8 81 HYBRID 20-23 W 15)CJ Harris AI13 74 HYBRID 20-23 S 16)John Stevens AI3 60 HYBRID 0-19 NE 17)Heejun Han AI11 52 HYBRID 20-23 NE 18)Megan Joy AI8 42 HYBRID 20-23 W 19)Naima Adedapo AI10 32 HYBRID 24+ MW POP: 1) Angie Miller AI12 230 POP 0-19 NE 2) Blake Lewis AI6 192 POP 24+ W 3) Diana DeGarmo AI3 166 POP 0-19 S 4)Hollie Cavanagh AI11 165 POP 0-19 S 5)Jordin Sparks AI6 147 POP 0-19 W 6)David Archuleta AI7 130 POP 0-19 W 7)Chris Richardson AI6 127 POP 20-23 S 8)Jessica Sierra AI4 118 POP 0-19 S 9)Pia Toscano AI10 113 POP 20-23 NE 10)Jessica Sanchez AI11 106 POP 0-19 W 11)Katharine McPhee AI5 106 POP 20-23 W 12)Katie Stevens AI9 106 POP 0-19 NE 13)Ace Young AI5 102 POP 24+ MW 14)Stefano Langone AI10 94 POP 20-23 W 15)Didi Benami AI9 91 POP 20-23 W 16)Haley Scarnato AI6 81 POP 24+ S 17)Jasmine Trias AI3 59 POP 0-19 W 18)Sanjaya Malakar AI6 58 POP 0-19 W 19)Lisa Tucker AI5 54 POP 0-19 W 20)Lazaro Arbos AI12 51 POP 20-23 S 21)Camile Velasco AI3 19 POP 0-19 W ROCK: 1) Adam Lambert AI8 240 ROCK 24+ W 2)Michael Johns AI7 230 ROCK 24+ S 3)James Durbin AI10 214 ROCK 20-23 W 4)Chris Daughtry AI5 200 ROCK 24+ S 5)David Cook AI7 187 ROCK 24+ MW 6)Amy Adams AI3 176 ROCK 24+ W 7)Caleb Johnson AI13 168 ROCK 20-23 S 8)Bo Bice AI4 159 ROCK 24+ S 9)Allison Iraheta AI8 155 ROCK 0-19 W 10)Constantine Maroulis AI4 147 ROCK 24+ NE 11)Gina Glocksen AI6 135 ROCK 20-23 MW 12)Carly Smithson AI7 123 ROCK 24+ W 13)Colton Dixon AI11 107 ROCK 20-23 S 14)Chris Sligh AI6 88 ROCK 24+ S 15)Siobhan Magnus AI9 73 ROCK 0-19 NE SINGER/SONGWRITER:

1)Kris Allen	AI8	216	SING-SONG	20-23	S
2)Lee DeWyze	AI9	190	SING-SONG	20-23	MW
3)Alex Preston	AI13	171	SING-SONG	20-23	NE
4)Phillip Phillips	AI11	167	SING-SONG	20-23	S
5)Tim Urban	AI9	109	SING-SONG	20-23	S
6)Sam Woolf	AI13	106	SING-SONG	0-19	S
7)Jon Peter Lewis	AI3	98	SING-SONG	24+	MW
8)Brooke White	AI7	92	SING-SONG	24+	W
9)Paul McDonald	AI10	82	SING-SONG	24+	S
10)Jason Castro	AI7	68	SING-SONG	20-23	S
11) MK Nobilette	AI13	40	SING-SONG	20-23	W

SOUL:

1) Anoop Desai	AI8	224	SOUL	20-23	S
2)LaToya London	AI3	223	SOUL	24+	W
3)Jennifer Hudson	AI3	180	SOUL	20-23	MW
4)Fantasia Barrino	AI3	169	SOUL	0-19	S
5)Candice Glover	AI12	157	SOUL	20-23	S
6) George Huff	AI3	151	SOUL	20-23	S
7)Nikko Smith	AI4	151	SOUL	20-23	MW
8)Paris Bennett	AI5	148	SOUL	0-19	S
9)Taylor Hicks	AI5	148	SOUL	24+	S
10)Elliott Yamin	AI5	144	SOUL	24+	S
11)Melinda Doolittle	AI6	142	SOUL	24+	S
12)Burnell Taylor	AI12	139	SOUL	0-19	S
13)Chikezie	AI7	129	SOUL	20-23	W
14)Syesha Mercado	AI7	124	SOUL	20-23	S
15)Mandisa	AI5	121	SOUL	24+	S
16)DeAndre Brackensick	AI11	118	SOUL	0-19	W
17)Malaya Watson	AI13	112	SOUL	0-19	MW
18)Amber Holcomb	AI12	111	SOUL	0-19	S
19)Vonzell Solomon	AI4	111	SOUL	20-23	S
20)Joshua Ledet	AI11	107	SOUL	0-19	S
21)LaKisha Jones	AI6	76	SOUL	24+	MW
22)Andrew Garcia	AI9	72	SOUL	24+	W
23)Anwar Robinson	AI4	58	SOUL	24+	NE
24)Lil Rounds	AI8	53	SOUL	20-23	S
25)Scott Savol	AI4	52	SOUL	24+	MW
26)Jacob Lusk	AI10	46	SOUL	20-23	W
27)Ramiele Malubay	AI7	28	SOUL	20-23	S
N/A) Curtis Finch	AI12		SOUL	24+	MW

Look at the company Alex Preston shares at the singer-songwriter slot: all those guys he is clustered with won their respective seasons. As a hybrid genre type (pop/rock), Jena doesn't have precedent for producing a winner. Caleb Johnson is lumped between David Cook and Bo Bice, so he can be winner or runner-up; however, unlike Alex and Jena, he isn't in the top five with respect to genre for PGSC score, so his style has been done better on the Idol stage before.

Play with the graphs below to learn more.

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