Idol Chatter & Voice Views

American Idol judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie will retain part of the contestant-picking power as the show cuts from a Top 14 to a Top 10 on Sunday and Monday. (ABC Photo)

The bad news: The judges are also retaining a good deal of control.

In my mind, that’s especially bad news after watching the judges badly bungle at least one Top 14 pick Monday night.

My takeaway: Even with Katy Perry as judge, even in this time of female empowerment, a potential male heartthrob (aka Garrett Jacobs) has more value to Idol than female with superior musical talent (aka Amelia Hammer Harris, Effie Passero or Alyssa Raghu).

With that commentary out of the way, here’s how the Top 14 (Sunday 8 to 10 p.m.) and Top 10 reveal (Monday 8 to 10 p.m.) shows will work.

Everyone will compete Sunday night for fan votes. Voting will run from the time Sunday’s show starts until 9 a.m. eastern time Monday.

Monday night, the judges will announce the Top 6 vote-getters, each of whom will sing a celebratory song.

Then the remaining eight contestants will perform, hoping to convince the judges to award them one of the final four spots in the Top 10.

Bottom line: Fans pick six members of the Top 10, the judges pick four. That’s the same way it worked in Season 15, though in the good ol’ days, fans also got to vote in the semifinals.

Now, how to vote?

There are three ways:

1. You can vote at ABC.com by following that link.

2. You can download the American Idol app and vote through it.

3. You can also vote via text message. I imagine the message you’ll need to text will be displayed during the show.

You can vote 10 times per artist per method. That means a maximum of 30 votes per contestant.

In order to vote on the website or via the Idol app, you’ll need to create an account on the voting page.

See also …
Ranking the Top 14
American Idol social media leaders