There have been rumors that the guys have the edge this year. Are there any specific contestants that blew you away?
There are. I'm not sure I can get into which contestant at this point, but looking at all the contestants as a whole, I felt that the males were the strongest. That being said, there are one or two females that I'm excited about as well, and I'm really just waiting for the show to roll out and for the next phase to see who is going to end up on top.

Idol used be more pop-oriented, but in recent years the show has expanded to more rockers and country singers. What about this year?
We definitely saw that this year. There were people who were doing country, people who were doing rock. There was a lot of soul influence, and it's not even that I'm talking R&B -- more in like the way Maroon 5 is soulful. So that was different.

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