Hollywood Week is here for the 22nd season of american idol – and the judges couldn’t be more excited!
“We’re reluctant to keep saying it gets better and better every year because it feels like (a cliché) and we’re just falsely trying to inflate the show. talent to choose”, Lucas Bryan raved.
The country singer and other judges Katy Perry It is Lionel Richieas well as host Ryan Seacrestspoke with ET’s Denny Directo ahead of the Hollywood shows, and Perry admitted that he thinks the high-quality talent pool this year is due to the judges being tougher on the contestants than in previous seasons.
“We had it tough on the road,” she recalled. “Our producers on the show said we were tougher than ever… and that means the show is better than ever.”
“It’s the natural pattern we have,” Perry added about putting pressure on contestants. “There’s only a few months between the end of the show and the start again… So we actually have a new memory in our heads of what the Top 10 is like. So maybe with that in mind, we think, ‘(They) have We want to be in the Top 10 because we know what it’s like.'”
The judges even admit that they get harder as the auditions go on – so extra apologies to Nashville, which was the last stop on the audition tour.
“It gets tricky, because at this point, some kids who we would have rolled the dice sooner (we won’t do it at the end),” Bryan shared. “We don’t want to send them here, make them go through all this, knowing that they are really (on edge).”
“Talent meets preparation and luck – those are the three things,” agreed Perry. “Some of these contestants at the beginning have the luck part because we thought, ‘Oh, we let this person in, but maybe we wouldn’t have done that (later).’
This season also featured the return of the “platinum ticket”, which allowed the singer to advance to the second week in Hollywood, in addition to choosing his duet partner.
“We made three platinum ticket holders,” Bryan shared. “I think historically our platinum ticket holders haven’t gone the distance, but I feel like this year we have a good chance of one of them going very, very high.”
And the judges also said that there is a lot more talent than these three who could compete to become the newest American Idol.
“I feel like last year we were thinking about two all the time, but this year I really think there’s like 10,” Perry marveled.
“There’s a lot,” Richie agreed. “We’re not exaggerating.”
This makes saying goodbye even more difficult, and the judges admit that this season, Hollywood Week has some heartbreaking moments.
“It’s very exciting for us,” Richie admitted. “We get to Hollywood and we realize, ‘Oh my God, this, this, this is out of their league…But as it gets involved, we get more and more emotional, trying to figure out how are we going to let them go?”
Ultimately, the show gives judges the chance to boost the careers of singers who want to follow in their footsteps — which is the rewarding side of reality competition.
“We have a boy from Ocala, Florida… He’s so young and young and what a shame, good boy,” Bryan reflected. “Whenever I see a kid like that, it really makes me think about how I would have auditioned when I was 18 or 19.”
american idol airs Sundays at 8pm PT/ET on ABC.
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