Idol’s back, bitches. And gone is my inability to fall asleep at night! Coincidence? Ambien? Warm milk and honey? Either way, I know you’re all at this site because you want me to rip into the farce that is American Idol, so I shan’t disappoint. I missed you all.

The Minneapolis auditions were just horrific. There were only 2 people who made it through that couldn’t qualify as future VFTW contenders… so far. It seems that the producers will run this show into the ground and kill every ounce of talent until it’s The William Hung show. Not that I’m complaining. But seriously, do you have friends who watch this show for the talent? And do they have IQ’s above 100? We have guest judge Jewel who, according to Ryan, is “one of the most popular artists of the decade.” Ryan also announced in his pre-show monologue that “Katharine McPhee is America’s sweetheart” after launching into the other Idol’s successes. I guess the producers aren’t hiding the fact that they lie through their teeth anymore. Next week, Paula will be deemed the "world's most sober celebrity."

First up, we have Jewel clone Jessica Rhode. She does makeovers for people at the mall. The show hasn’t even been on for 6 minutes and already she’s crying. A lot. After singing a Jewel song, the judges tell her no. This immediately causes her to cry again. Left on the editing room floor were the comments, “But those British producers told me I was good. This… how can you… no!” and “I’ll never give you that private makeover now, Simon!” Jessica tries to go out the wrong door, because apparently Idol can’t afford a place for the auditions with 2 working doors. As she continues to cry and walks away, it’s now obvious why she was shown. Jewel’s new song, which features the cliché lyrics “It’s gonna be alright… no matter what they say…” plays as Jessica cries her way back home. I feel like I’ve sold my soul to watch this crap. If only Jessica had used a Cingular phone to text her Coke drinking parents about her disaster. If only.

Next up is Troy Behman, the Amish guy without a TV who has never heard of American Idol or ever watched a television yet a) somehow found out about the auditions, b) sings “You can’t be mean to me” to the judges who he shouldn’t know are mean since he doesn’t watch the show, c) mugs for camera time, and d) ends it all by saying “I didn’t say I was the next American Idol.” How exactly would he know that’s what people say? Fake. Liar. Worse than Pickler. Next.

Idol loves their divas, so they next decided to bring in Jesse Holloway. He sings like a VFTW legend, with amazing falshitto that sounds nothing like his idol Mariah Carey. He also becomes the second person to try to open the wrong door. Overall, slightly boring, yet he did leave us with the comebacks, “Simon doesn’t know what it’s like to be nervous in front of nobody”, “Randy needs to wipe off his makeup”, and “when’s the last time we saw Paula dancing around?” Um, I saw Paula dancing around and slurring her speech on Fox the other day. Just sayin’.

A half hour into the show, we have yet to see a good singer. Yet Idol claims it’s about good singing. We all know they love VFTW and just won’t admit it. This is why they let Charles Moody dress up like Uncle Sam to “knock out the audition.” He’s really not terrible at first, it’s his odd faces that make the audition funny. Charles also becomes the next person to walk out the wrong door. You’d think they’d tell people which door to leave through at this point. Apparently, this is not a priority.

32 minutes in and we get our first “good” singer. Good is in quotation marks, because she still wasn’t that good. Meet Kellie Pickler 2.0, Denise Jackson. But instead of hearing “Mah daddy’s in jay-ul” all season, we’ll be hearing “I was born a crack baby.” VFTW loves this stuff. Because long after Denise starts really screwing up her performances, people will still vote for her because her daddy was… I mean she was a crack baby. Her performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Going to Scream a Song Really Loud” was okay. Look for her lack of experience to catch up with her.

Tashawn Moore dressed to impress. And after about 10 minutes of her audition, all we know is that she wants “women not girls.” The judges tell her no, but she responds yes each time as if she’s overruling them in her head. So I guess by Tashawn’s count, she’s GOING TO HOLLYWOOD, BABY!!!! Unfortunately, all she adds is one more person going out the wrong door. We’re up to 4 people now. Is it seriously impossible to open the other door? The left door... there's something kind of... it's starting to interest me.

Perla Meneses proves that she’s not very observant when she asks Ryan Seacrest if he likes Spanish girls. Sweety, Ryan doesn’t like girls. Her confidence unshaken, Perla talks about how she was homeless. It’s another Pickler, folks. As she launches into “Call Me”, all I can think is how deliciously annoying her voice is. The goat girl vibrato is out in full effect. She does a much less VFTW-tastic job with “Hips Don’t Lie”, but it’s obvious that she’s going to really suck it up in Hollywood. The judges all say she can’t sing well, but then put her through to Hollywood to make VFTW happy. Perla Necklace shines tonight as my favorite False Idol. I can see her inspiring the hatred of America and the love of VFTW unintentionally. Brilliant. We’re now 47 minutes into the show and 2 people made it through. And neither were very good.

Singing “Folsom Blues”, Matthew Volna is boring. Simon calls him “pointless and awful”. Then why bother showing him? He wasn’t even VFTW worthy. Next.

Now that we’ve had 2 Kellie Pickler wannabes, we might as well throw in another Josh Gracin, right? VFTW All Stars is in full effect as Jarrod Fowler takes the stage. We have another military man who will only get votes due to his military service as he sucks his way into the top four. Josh… I mean Jarrod even performs Josh’s audition song, “God Bless the Broken Road”. Randy says he’s pitchy and overdoes it on the melisma (but way less articulate: More like “Dawg, yo, yo. Pitchy and the things, yeah man, yeah.”) Paula didn’t make any stupid comments about him, though. Notice how they’re barely showing her. She was probably too busy dry humping the table to talk, so Josh is through to Hollywood.

Trista Giese does a Wizard of Oz lion impression. She’s the fifth person to try the wrong door, and I ain’t lyin’. Sorry, had to do it. At this point, I’m cheering for the door more than the show. I’ve stopped paying attention to the singers and I just want to see everyone go out the wrong door. Singing? Who cares. Wrong door! Wrong door!

Stephen Horst is a voice teacher who sings “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing”. Randy insults him a lot and Simon says Randy is rude. Simon is a hypocritical idiot. But… I don’t care. Will Stephen try the wrong door? Paula says “too much vibrato”… whatever. Come on, wrong door. Come on. OH NO! Stephen goes out the right door. Damn you, Stephen.

Michelle Steingas, some pretty blonde girl, is the first one I can’t equate to VFTW. 73 minutes in. That took awhile. She goes out the right door (boo) and then says she can now “quit her job.” A bit premature, Michelle? She was boring though, so back to the door!

Dayna Dooley is flown in by her boss because he wants to bang her. Not good enough. Right door...

Rachel Jenkins exploits her army status as the second Josh Gracin wannabe of the night. She’s not great and has a possible VFTW future. Right door…

Sarah Krueger sings the overdone “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She’s only the second singer I can’t make into a VFTW victory. She’s very boring. And… right door. I guess I should stop watching the door for now.

Next up, 16 year old Matt Sato complains that his parents don’t support him and won’t come to his audition. It’s Scott Savol 2.0. None of these kids have an original schtick anymore, let me tell you. Matt complains about how his parents won’t pay for him to sing and how they’re very unsupportive. He also has a huge zit on his nose. Soon, we are treated to his overly flamboyant show choir rendition of “California Dreamin” and… the zit. I can’t stop watching the zit. But will he go out the wrong… zit. I wonder if he saw that thing. It’s huge! The zit is even distracting me from Doorwatch 2007. Yes, I'm off my ADD medication. Matt and his zit are both going to Hollywood. After going out the right door (grumble), what does Matt do? He calls the same parents he complained about and sold out only moments prior to tell them he made it to Hollywood. Suddenly, mom loves him again. What a fucked up family. At least his zit loves him. Matt is definitely a VFTW victory on the rise. He’s not very good and he’s 16. Think back to John Stevens, David Radford, Kevin Covais, and the other 16 year old guys we’ve had on the show. Yep, he’s gonna be awesomely bad.

After that, we’re treated to Jason Anderson who has a mediocre audition where he juggles and Randy shamelessly pimps America’s Got No Talent. Jason is incredibly kind to the judges, even when they tell him no and laugh at him… until he leaves the room (out the right door). Then the insults fly. “Idol Logo them!” ‘They Idol Logo cut me off!” “I’ve never been so insulted in my life!” “They said Minneapolis has no talent because of me. Idol Logo!” “I’m 16 years old and I wanted to start off famous, but they blew me off!” Jason… you need to say this to the judges. They can take it. Paula’s too drunk, Randy barely speaks English, Jewel is doing her best Pickler impression, and Simon’s only comeback is to rub his man boobs. After crying for quite a while, Jason leaves.

When ultimate Idol fan Brenna Kyner walks in, Simon looks mortified. Simon doesn’t like fat people (have you seen his girlfriend? Anorexia’s jealous.) Brenna has watched every episode of every Idol from every country EVER. Even Al Qaeda Idol. She says that she and Idol are BFF. So obviously she has good taste, right? Yes… if you’re a Worster. Her favorite contestant ever is Ace Young, who drew her a tattoo. She then makes Ace proud by singing as crappily as he does with “Under Pressure”. I do admit she’s the only one all night who made me laugh. After telling her no, Jewel offers up that Brenna got to be on her favorite show, so isn’t that great? Brenna looks pissed. I’m not too upset though because there’s only one Brenna for me, bling bling, shine on, and all that. I have a feeling that Brenna K. spends some time at VFTW… she’d fit right in. I admit, I like her, even if it’s sacrilegious for her to have the same name as a VFTW queen.

The episode’s almost over, and lucky us, we’re subjected to a stupid city song montage of Prince’s “Kiss”. If you haven’t read up on how staged these montages are, do some homework.

And finally, we have Chris Daughtry Jr., Josh Flom. Josh’s dad tells us that Josh can “sing like a bird” and that he wanted Josh to be a hockey goalie instead of a singer. Way to sound like an idiot, Josh’s dad. This is not Goalie Idol. No brownie points are awarded. Since Josh looks up to Penis with Ears, it’s obvious he’s not going to be very good. Then Simon challenges Josh to sing an ABBA song and… wait for it… wait for it… WRONG DOOR! YES! I love that door so much! That’s lucky number six. That door, it’s an inspiration to doors everywhere. Oh wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Josh sings ABBA really crappy like Chris would. Definitely VFTW in the making, but the judges don’t let him through. So he cries. He did seem pretty innocent and kind of like a nice guy. But hey, that’s Idol for you.

In the end, 17 made it to Hollywood. That’s IT? And they couldn’t show short clips of all of them? I can’t believe I wasted two hours of my life on this. So check back tomorrow when I waste two hours more on the Seattle auditions. Simon calls them the “worst”. We’ll see about that. For now, I hope you enjoyed the return of False Idols. And I hope you enjoyed the one part of the show tonight that was worth watching… the door.

In case you haven't seen the infamous Paula Abdul drunken video, check this out. Paula's excuse was that she was answering the wrong question into the wrong camera because she was confused. Looks like she's answering the right questions to me, just after one too many spirits. If this is a sign of things to come, Idol 6 will be AWESOME.

Jennifer Hudson, known to Worsters affectionately as Boomquisha or Boomie, just won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Jennifer was actually the first ever VFTW pick due to her crazy outfits and over the top singing. Soon after, Boomie became way too good to be VFTW and rose in the ranks. And voila... she wins a Golden Globe. Big things happen for VFTW picks.

In other news, that bitch Whatevia STILL ain't impressed.

Welcome Back Class!

And so American Idol 2007 begins in Earnest... with 100 hours of bad singing. I will be there for all the hits and misses, and more misses of Bad Singing Month.

Six months ago Vote For the Worst helped crown a new American Idol winner.

Pop Quiz: Name last year's winner. I've already forgotten-- Oh, right that gray-haired dude. What was his name again? Taylor Hicks - You're Trivial Pursuit Question #100,876. Way to go dude.

Did anyone else notice that the day after Katharine McPhee lost she dropped like 40 pounds in order to become a pop star? Way to improve the body image for young girls across this nation, American Idol. Good Job! That can't be healthy for anybody, let alone someone recovering from an eating disorder. I can only wonder what would've happend if Mandisa won. Even Ruben dropped 150 pounds to become a "huggable Teddy Bear of Love." All I can say is I'm enjoying my anonymously flabby existence.

Professor Chan

As we embark on the craptastic journey that will become American Idol 6, let us not forget our VFTW past. A lovely reader has sent us a picture of Constantine Maroulis doing a pose for the camera, with a woman next to him sporting a Votefortheworst.com baseball cap. Does Constantine actually like VFTW? Nope, apparently he was just too self-absorbed to notice the hat.

The typical compliment to a great singer in this day and age is, "You should go on American Idol!" We all have friends that can sing circles around Katharine McPhee and Chris Daughtry, and many of them may have tried out to be on the most popular show in the country. Most of these great singers don't make it anywhere near Simon, Paula, and Randy.

Could the show be turning down real talent? Could there be more to the audition process than we all think? Of course! Votefortheworst.com has known all about the ridiculous audition process for quite some time, so we’ve decided to do even more research to show you what really goes down at the cattle calls. If you think that American Idol is actually a talent competition, read on, and let us change your mind.

AUDITION MYTH #1: "The auditions take place over one or two days and everyone gets to see Simon, Paula, and Randy."

As any of the American Idol audition episodes begin, the viewers are treated to a shot of the thousands and thousands of people who try out in any given city. We then get to watch them all try out in front of Simon, Paula, and Randy in 2 days, right? Of course not! Besides the fact that it's logistically impossible, an incredibly tiny fraction of those auditioners ever see the famous judges.

In actuality, the contestants are at the auditions for about a week before they even see the Loathsome Threesome. An MSNBC article explains:

During the auditions, the judges don’t show up until the last day or two, and only see about 100 people who have already been screened, first by producers (who see small groups and narrow the contestants to a few hundred) and then by the show’s executive producers.

So the wannabe Idols first have to try out in groups of four for a number of random producers. Then, they try out one-by-one in front of the executive producers. And finally, they try out in front of our favorite boozehound and her cohorts. This is why so many people lose their jobs to try out for the show; they have to attend auditions for a week before they even know if they’re going to Hollywood.

So what happens during these earlier auditions? Well for one thing, those obnoxious song montages that usually end the episodes are filmed then. It’s not a coincidence that all of the bad singers decided to sing the same song. Jennifer Sieminski, who made it to Hollywood during American Idol's fifth season, admits that those segments are not “even recorded in front of Simon, Paula and Randy.”

Apparently, each city has a “city song” that everyone must sing so that the producers can make the lame montages. The producers even force the people who audition to wear the same clothes to each audition so the viewers at home think the auditions all took place over the span of 1 or 2 days. They messed up with Crystal Parizanski, the overly tan girl who auditioned in Chicago for American Idol 5, who was wearing a completely different outfit during the “Lady Marmalade” montage at the end of the episode. This obviously showed that she had been there for at least a few days.

AUDITION MYTH #2: "We see a truthful depiction of each audition."

Obviously all television shows use editing to condense footage and tell stories. Reality TV, though, is particularly guilty of using editing to completely change the facts of a situation and craft stories that didn’t happen. The fact that so many rounds of auditions exist provide the producers with ample footage to cut and paste as they please. Robert Solomon (check out his MySpace), the movie projectionist who tried out for American Idol 4, was surprised to see himself singing “Dancing in the Streets” in front of the celebrity judges when his audition episode aired, because “Dancing” was the city song he was forced to sing:

"I did not sing that song for Simon and Randy. I sang that song at my 2nd audition for the two old British producers. What you saw (or haven't saw yet) was a bit of trickery. Not only did they record comments from Simon that he never said to me they also digitally altered the background to make it appear that I had chosen to sing that song for my 3rd audition (the celebrity judges one). I only sang that song at the 2nd audition because everyone was required to know that song at the New Orleans audition."

So apparently, the show even goes back to record extra judge commentary that didn’t even take place. Obviously, the point of having week-long auditions isn’t just to weed out the singers the producers don’t want; it’s also to get extra footage to splice in at different points. Robert goes into more detail to prove his point for those who might not believe him, explaining that he “had also helped them out by wearing the same outfit to both auditions” as we pointed out. He also made the following valid points on why it’s obvious that the events didn’t happen the way we saw them in the show:

- I jump right into the chorus abruptly without a song introduction (which differed from pretty much everyone else on that show).
- I'm in a long shot for the entirety of my singing while everyone else in the show is in a medium shot.
- The carpet has a slightly different look to it if you compare the two.
- Do you really think that the judges would have not torn me to pieces if I sang that song the way I did in front of them?
- I don't look very strained when Paula cuts me off... one of my cheeks tends to turn bright red when I do my "high singing" and I had no evidence of strain when she cut me off.

The producers must have found Robert’s “Dancing in the Street” much more amusing than his actual audition in front of the judges, so they used that instead. Of course, if Robert’s audition was creatively edited, it’s highly likely that most of the other auditions were as well.

AUDITION MYTH #3: "The bad singers are not encouraged by the producers."

It’s surprising how many bad singers are delusional enough to think they can become the next American Idol. It takes a special level of craziness to put yourself through such a masochistic process, but the delusional still come out in droves every year, much to VFTW’s delight.

Crystal Parizanski looked silly during her time on the show due in part to her excessive use of makeup. But was that her choice? Crystal talked to Mix 96 Montreal in a radio interview about her experience on the show. She had this to say:

"The show was edited a lot… They portrayed me very stupid… With the show, they told me to put on more makeup. I’m like, “You’re trying to, you know, [exploit] me, you know saying, ‘put on more makeup. Simon will like that. You have to look prettier on the stage for the judges.’” And they came into the bathroom and filmed it too… They told me, “You know what? We like how you put on your mascara, you should put it on” and they filmed me putting it on just to make a mockery of me and I’m like, “That’s bogus.” But you have to learn the harsh realities of the world I guess and how reality TV is not that real."

Now Crystal doesn’t come off as a beacon of intelligence, but it does make it a little less funny when someone like her was tricked into looking stupider. Crystal also mentioned in the interview how her time on the show was edited and that the producers took clips from some of her auditions and put them together to make her look dumber.

AUDITION MYTH #4: "The good singers always make it through."

Even if there are many stages to the audition process, it seems like the good singers will always triumph and continue on in the competition. The producers only like to mess with the bad singers, right? Well, that's not correct at all either. In fact, the first judging process is so ridiculously random, we wonder why anyone even bothers to try out.

As we previously mentioned, the first round of auditions takes place in front of a group producers at a table, who likely aren’t even very qualified to judge a competition (then again, this never stopped Simon, Paula, and Randy). Each singer tries out with 3 other singers for these producers. After singing for a mere 15 seconds, you are told whether you’re moving on or going home. The producers are usually only on the lookout for people with stories that will sell on TV or people who will make incredible fools of themselves. One auditioner figured out that there are good tables and bad tables, meaning that it's possible that the bad tables just pass on everyone and won’t let anyone through to the next round. What if a good singer gets stuck at a bad table? Well, good luck next year! Blogger Matthew Paul David wrote about his experience at the Seattle auditions:

"We made our way down and they did the whole ‘separate into groups of 4’ thing and we waited to go to a table. (there were 11 tables total). We were unlucky enough to be the first to go to a table where the judge/staff member had just come off a break. He didn’t look very nice either. And I was the lucky one to sing first. GREEEEAAAT. I sang “Jealous Guy” by John Lennon and I wasn’t comfortable with my performance at all. But whatever, I didn’t care – after I sang I knew I pretty much bombed it and wouldn’t make it through. I couldn’t hear anybody else in my group sing. We were standing too far back. When we were done the guy told us that he wasn’t going to put any of us through and then said something else but I couldn’t really hear. So we grabbed our shit, went and got our wristbands cut and took the “walk of shame” through the exit that all the rejects go through."

Of course, this sounds highly technical and very efficient at making sure all good singers get through to the next round… not. Afraidofpop shared her audition experience at the East Rutherford auditions this year:

"And here comes Mandisa 2.0. Holy Jesus, she's amazing. "I'm Your Baby Tonight." More Whitney. Big surprise. But she pulls it off and then some. WOW. The arena is applauding. Everyone could hear her. The girl next to her is shaking her head in wonder…OHMYGOD THEY PASSED ON ALL OF THEM. The arena boos… Many of the best singers I've ever heard who don't currently have record deals [are] being cut, right and left."

Obviously if you’re going to cut someone who blows an entire room away, the process is either flawed or not really looking for good singers.

AUDITION MYTH #5: "Everyone has a shot at becoming the American Idol."

A ticket to Hollywood isn't always what it's cracked up to be either. In reality, the producers of the show have a good idea of who they want in the competition and who they don’t. Even after making past the virtual circus of auditions, the good singers who make it to Hollywood aren’t immune from a little creative editing out of their fair shot. In Jennifer Sieminski’s interview with the East Carolinan, she says that awful singers like the famous VFTW pick Kellie Pickler had a golden road paved to the semi-final rounds.

"Kellie Pickler actually forgot all of her words for two days and they didn't show that. Heather Cox had laryngitis for two days and couldn't even sing a note on group day, but somehow made it through. I'm not disappointed that I was cut... I'm mad at the people who weren't cut..."

Jennifer also mentions in that interview that Katharine McPhee was acting like a gigantic bitch all week and that the two of them had a fight on camera.

"My group consisted of myself, the oh-so-humble Katherine McPhee and Crystal Stark. Crystal was in the same boat that I was, we were never shown on TV. You would have never known we were there... We picked "I can't help myself (sugarpie honeybunch)" and we picked it because it had easy words and we knew the melody. But it's now 11:30 and the last thing we wanted to do was sing more... At this point, I started to break down. I was so tired and this was so stressful. Anyways, Katherine is not so humble, she's overzealous, she's bossy, she's a b*tch, and they totally portray her as being the sweet girl. They didn't air the fight that we had because they wanted to keep her... it was 2:30 in the morning before they let us go back to the hotel... and then 7:30 call, everyone was a bit tired and it was a little rough… We did well, and guess who forgot all the words? Katherine..."

This confrontation was obviously never shown because the show was painting Katharine as the humble girl with a beautiful voice. Of course, by the end of the show it was fairly obvious that Katharine was indeed a spoiled brat who forgot lyrics quite a few times because it’s tough to edit something out of a live show. But the producers got their “humble, sweet girl” contestant in Katharine for quite a while before her true colors came out.

Basically, the American Idol auditions are not actually auditions for a singing competition; they’re auditions for a reality television show. Why haven’t we heard more about this before? Well the people who make it to the finals are happy to have made it that far and have no bone to pick, and people tend to not believe the complaints of the contestants who were edited poorly. Also, all of the contestants (even William Hung and other people who don’t make it far at all) have to sign ridiculously long contracts that forbid them from revealing Idol’s secrets. Still don’t believe us? How about hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth? Idol producer Ken Warwick interviewed with Foxes on Idol last year. In one section, Kenny admits that the Austin auditions for season 5 were edited very creatively:

It’s come out recently that the Austin people did not really audition for the judges in Austin. That they did so elsewhere, maybe in San Francisco and other places.

Yes, that’s correct.

But then why did you choose to not say that on the show, and make it look in several instances as if the judges were in Austin? Like when Simon is walking in, and you show a woman running away from him, and she’s clearly in Austin and he –

Clearly, that didn’t happen the way it is, we add things. We have to produce an entertaining program to begin with, and scenes like that where we’re taking the ... out of Simon, we will edit to make it work. But the fact of the matter is, because of Katrina, we pulled out of Memphis; we had to go elsewhere.

While this may have been about one isolated incident, the Austin auditions, Kenny said, “Clearly, that didn’t happen the way it is, we add things.” And if the producers have no problem leaving out that a giant hurricane made them bring certain auditioners to other cities, they certainly don’t have a problem changing smaller details as well.

So what advice do we have for the budding American Idol hopeful? First of all, don’t try out. If you’re actually talented, there are many better ways to get your name out there. But if you must try out, at least invent some kind of good story. Cry a lot on camera. Basically become a fame whore like Kellie Pickler. The producers love that. Most of all, don’t have a mind of your own like Taylor Hicks, who refused to sing his coronation song until a new one was written for him. It might make the producers mad that their puppet is talking back to them. Though if you’re willing to sell your dignity, American Idol may actually be the perfect venue for you! Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Votefortheworst.com was started in 2004 to support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol. We vote en masse for the contestant that we feel provides the most entertaining performances that go against what the producers want in a winner and that annoy the viewing public. We don't necessarily vote for the worst technical singer; we take into account many factors like the contestant's personality, how well they dance and move around the stage, if they talk back to the judges or have an attitude, and how likely they are to annoy everyone when they stick around. We vote for the most entertaining contestant using our own criteria, but bad vocals are usually standard. Why do we do it? And are we ruining American Idol and crushing dreams?

We've got about a month before the madness starts again, and the rumors are rolling in about who made it to the top 40 this year. There are two people you may be shocked to see again from last year's show. The first is Gina Glocksen, the dental assistant who rocks out at night in the band Catfight. Also returning and rumored to make it far is Brokenote cowboy Matthew Buckstein. There are also 2 other people that we've found so far that really have us excited at the possibility that they may be the next great VFTW pick:

Blake Lewis - a Justin Timberlake wannabe who has the Idol look but it doesn't seem he has the Idol talent. Blake is also in Gina's top 8 and he left her a message on December 10th saying "its all happening.......!!!" (yes, Blake used the wrong it's) and "can't wait to see you" so we think we're on the right track.

Chris Sligh - a weird Jack Osbourne lookalike who took down all of his pictures and music off of his MySpace (a pretty good sign that he may be in the semifinals).

For the latest updates on rumored Idol contestants, make sure to register at the VFTW message board. The latest dirt is always there first and we have many more rumored contestants and their sucky MySpace pages for you to check out.

American Idol 6 doesn't premiere for a few more months, but we've got some fun updates for you! First of all, we have an update on the amazing Brenna Gethers. Brenna recently signed on to front the American Music award winning band Bomb Squad. Make sure to check out Brenna's MySpace and leave her some love, and check out the MySpace for Bomb Squad too and have a listen to their funky tracks. We always knew Brenna was destined for great things, and we're really excited for her! We'll keep you updated on any Bomb Squad tour and album updates.

Secondly, we have quite a fan in rejected auditioner Christy Jones. VFTW has been chatting about her not so stellar (but oh so VFTW) music on our message board for the past week, so she decided to write a song about us. Make sure to check out The Story of VFTW Part One. We're hoping this becomes a "Trapped in the Closet"-esque tribute to Dave and Tina, Christy's two favorite Worsters.

And lastly, yes, the message board is down. It'll be back, but in the meantime, hold tight. We'll keep you updated!

Votefortheworst.com compiled a list of our 20 favorite Idol performances of all time. Check out AOL's reveal of VFTW's Top 20 Awesomely Awful American Idol Performances to see which hilariously bad performances made the cut and to relive your favorite your favorite VFTW moments with standouts like Scott Savol, Kellie Pickler, and John Stevens.