Country Show down

So, we had a little bit of drama going into the show last night. It got out that Lauren was so sick that she might not be able to perform and that they were looking to Haley to step into her place. Thank goodness it didn't come to that. I don't think I could have handled another night of an over-caffeinated Prof. Lupin in heat.

Both Scotty and Lauren did well. Scotty's was pretty much the same performance we've been getting all season long. I half expect at this point that he could have phoned the bugger in and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference to his fans. Lauren was a bit of a surprise to see her do so well, considering the big deal they made about her blown vocal chord. I'm beginning to wonder if the producers see which way this season's going to head and in an effort to make it a closer race, leaked info in an effort to get some sympathy votes for her.Scotty won the toss, he deferred to her and she chose the pimp spot. So yet again, Scotty's fans are denied seeing him close out a show.

So who will win?

Well, Scotty's been solid all season with maybe 1 or 2 not so hot performances. However, it's out there that many of the country stations don't want to have to work with him. Maybe his sound is too old school for their liking? Lauren's got more of a commercial, cross-over sound to her and should do very well, if not better than Scotty. If you have an ITunes account, I highly encourage you check out the studio versions of their coronation singles. I firmly believe that hers will get much more air time than his.

As of Sunday, Scotty's odds were at a -800 on the site I go to for the figures. This means in order to come out even, you'd need to put down $800. With Lauren, on the other hand, her odds have her at 400 which means that if you were smart and put $100 on her last week AND she manages to win.... you'd get that and $400.

RAW: The chart for the RAW scores is showing 3 out of Scotty's 4 lines receiving more votes than all of Lauren's. This particular chart hasn't been totally accurate all season, but it's been closer to right than the rest of the site. The most interesting part of the screen shot below is that they're promoting Lauren's single and no matter how many times I refreshed the page, I never once saw a promo for Scotty.... hm.

Maps: With a 19 state win with 17 losses, Lauren actually bested Scotty who ended up with score of -2. In the last 4 years (DI doesn't go back any farther), only 50% of the time the Maps were correct. I would guess that Seasons 1-5 more than likely reflected what Seasons 6 & 7 did, with the runner up winning fewer states overall. However, Seasons 8 & 9 were a bit on the strange side with the runner up actually scoring higher on the winner map than the champion did.

Chart: According to the Chart, we have another landslide winner. It wasn't even close. It was Scotty right from the starting gate, and he wasn't even going full steam. VFTW is going to love this and you can damn well bet they'll declare a victory.

Wikipedia: According to the number crunchers,  more often than not, the one in the pimp spot wins. Of  9 seasons, there were only 3 instances where the person who sang first actually won this contest.

We've had a WMWG champion the last 3 years and the only was I see this changing is if the producers decide that they're simply not going to allow that to happen. Either that or Scotty decides he doesn't really want it that bad and defers the crown to Lauren.