Irish accent, tattoos, really smiley. Other half was a tattoo artist with way too much ink.

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought it said "Al" not "AI" and I was thinking, yep...Al Sharpton jumped the shark years ago! LOL

Thanks. She was a bartender, right? Or maybe owned a bar? I do remember the ink-artist SO. I also remember liking her voice and being ticked off that she had to sing the drivel they are given to choose from most of the time. I thought it odd she didn't go farther in the competition, but chalked it up to her not being what the lollipops-and-bubble-gum voting crowd of AI mostly goes for.

Honestly, while I do enjoy the show - I think it would be far more accurate if they allowed them to compete with full-length versions of covers or original material, then based the results on iTunes sales (or something similar) of those songs within a 24 hour period. As it is structured right now, any 12 year old with phone access can vote all they want to, and those results do not necessarily reflect actual commercial success.

Becca, I would totally agree that doing full length versions of the song with less blabbering would be better tv. I'd like to see the top 5 have to do original songs too. The problem with full length though is running the show for far too long.

If I was going to do a reality music show like this, I'd take the best from several different shows.

It would be done on one day a week (maybe two early on if there are lots of contestants). Noone would go home week one, and on week two, everyone but the person elinated would sing (thank you Nashville Star). For the first several weeks, they would sing covers of well known shows and get coaching from one of the judges to help them improve.

Voting would be restricted to 1 vote per contestant per phone number. (top 10 = 10 votes per line, 5 = 5 votes per line) This would settle down the number of votes by one person and get a more realistic comparison. Online voting could also be done by downloading the performance throughout the week from the show's website. (Paying for the website and making money). You could vote here as many times as you are willing to spend $1 to download the song.

I'd have fewer bad guests that have nothing to do with the show and more guests from previous seasons to promote their music.

Most importantly, I'd make them right their own songs.

I loved Nashville Star's format! (And I love Miranda Lambert who took third-place on "Nashville Star" in 2003!)