Idol Chatter & Voice Views

No sooner had American Idol filled out this year’s top 13 than someone started a forum on americanidol.com asking fans to rank the finalists.

What has followed is a fine example of forum discipline. Most folks stayed on point, obeyed directions and rated each of the final 13 contestants, with 1 being the best, 13 the worst.

Just for kicks, I thought it would be fun to throw all those rankings on a spreadsheet, do some calculations and see who came out on top.

After all, 139 people responded to the forum correctly, so that’s a pretty good number of ratings to go by.

And the winner is …. by the narrowest of margins … Adam Lambert of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” fame.

Followed closely by Danny Gokey, the judges’ favorite.

Followed not so closely by Lil Rounds, the judges’ favorite among the gals.

Here’s how the ratings broke down:

At the top: Forty-one of the 139 people think Adam will win Idol, compared to 38 who predict Danny will win. Adam’s average ranking (remember, low numbers are best in this system) was 3.37 compared to 3.4 for Danny. Wow, that is close.

Most popular gal: More fans think Allison Iraheta will win Idol than Lil Rounds. Twelve fans predict a win for Allison; 10 a win for Lil.

Most perplexing contestants: Fans clearly don’t know what to make of Alexis Grace or Matt Giraud. Thirty-four fans predict Alexis to finish in the top four; 28 expect her to finish in the bottom four. Ten predict Matt to rally from a wild card spot to become the next American Idol, but 25 don’t expect him to last more than three weeks.

Others with top rankings: Other contestants ranked first by at least one fan include: Anoop Desai (7), Megan Joy (3), Kris Allen (2), Jorge Nunez (1) and Alexis Grace (1). Add 41 top rankings for Adam, 38 for Danny, 12 for Allison, 10 for Matt and 10 for Lil and it won’t total 139. That’s because about a dozen folks just couldn’t choose between their favorite two or three contestants.

Long, long longshots: Not a single person ranked Scott MacIntyre, Jasmine Murray or Michael Sarver all alone at number one. In fact, more than two-thirds of fans expect Jasmine and Michael to finish in the bottom four.

Coming later today: I’ll rank the contestants, from best to worst; from most likely to win over the fans to most likely to turn them off; from most likely to sparkle in the Idol spotlight, to most likely to wilt under the pressure. Stay tuned.

The complete rundown on the average ratings from those 139 fans (remember, low numbers are best):

1. Adam Lambert, 3.37

2. Danny Gokey, 3.4

3. Lil Rounds, 4.58

4. Allison Iraheta, 4.86

5. Matt Giraud, 6.25

6. Anoop Desai, 6.27

7. Alexis Grace, 6.67

8. Scott MacIntyre, 7.69

9. Kris Allen, 8.54

10. Megan Joy, 8.62

11. Jorge Nunez, 9.17

12. Jasmine Murray, 10.46

13. Michael Sarver, 10.97