Michael Johns Fans

Michael Johns nails 'Simple Minds' for Top 8 Men performance

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:56:57 -0600

Ok so after some delays last week, this week's performance of Simple Minds' 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' is hot off the press.

Courtesy news.com.au's Michael Johns 'like Hutchence' article:

The performance earned rave reviews from judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.

"You remind me of Michael Hutchence. You've got that big old range, that big old voice," Jackson said.

"I loved it dude."

Cowell agreed: "I really, really like you and I think you're going to do very, very well in this competition."

Thanks to YouTube's justbeingh0nest for saving me the effort of commenting:

Michael vocally owned this song. Simple Minds should be proud of such a justified cover. Michael did a good job singing the first verse and ever better singing the next verse an octave higher. This is the best cover I've ever heard of this song.

They also noted it's the lighting producer who's on holidays this week... which is surprising after that awesome fire for the top 12 performance:

The lighting designer should've picked different colors than bright green and pink to light up the background and stage...the color scheme felt out of place.

Anyway to give you something to compare to, here's the original:

Jason Yeager (ex-Top 10 Men) on Michael Johns

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:34:28 -0600

Jason Yeager had lots of nice things to say about Mike (who was his roommate in Hollywood Week) during his exit interview according to the Charlotte Observer:

We became really, really good friends. We were roommates from Hollywood Week, day one. They kind of set everybody up randomly and we were lucky enough that we didn't have to switch rooms or anything. Every time somebody got eliminated through Hollywood Week, you'd have to consolidate rooms and everybody kept switching around. We were lucky that we just got to stay in that same room and really get to know each other. Our personalities just really clicked. He's like the funniest guy that I've met. He has a great personality. I just was blessed to get to know him. He is a dedicated songwriter and musician and especially a singer. We just really encouraged each other. We always helped each other out with our song choices, giving each other advice and criticism. Gosh, I'm really gong to miss that guy a lot and I hope that he does really well.

Nice guy. Anyway, why are you reading this now. Shouldn't you be watching the show and getting ready to vote for Mike?

American Idol Top 10 Guys - Mike sings Fleetwood Mac

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:03:24 -0600

Mike sang Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" for his top 10 performance and though there was some sound problems, we already know for sure that he'll survive to sing another week.

Enjoy, and for the benefit of those of you viewing the podcast you can download the video. If you're lucky enough to own an iPhone then you'll be pleased to know this video is optimised for it.

Update: Top 12 Men performance video for Podcast viewers

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:54:36 -0600

Update: For the benefit of those of you subscribed to this blog as a podcast, you can download the video itself, optimised for iPhone as usual.

Sound Check... One... Two... Testing... One... Two... Three!

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:24:48 -0600

Fortunately they put the performances up on iTunes too so we have a reference (including this one, which we encourage you to buy along with last week's - at a buck each they're the cheapest singles you'll ever buy and you'll be supporting the show too). We've spliced the TV audio with the iTunes audio and were blown away by the difference, but we'll let you draw your own conclusions as you can download the comparison yourself (thanks to fair use laws)... you'll probably need iTunes to play it.

Moral of the story: if you want to hear the performance verbatim, buy it on iTunes.

Sound Check... One... Two... Testing... One... Two...

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:19:33 -0600

Ok guys we're still here but we got caught up a bit this week with the videos. You see there's a lot of work goes into bringing you the highest quality possible - it's recorded in HDTV, trimmed, titled, transcoded and uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

So when we end up with a clip that doesn't sound right we end up scratching our heads trying to work out why, checking our source, transcoding, etc. It's only when we see comments like this: "I don’t know if it was the sound board or Johns himself" and footage like this where Paula can't be heard (twice) that we realise that maybe the sound guy is actually asleep at the wheel - after all you can clearly see that Mike's belting out the song in the video. Ok so granted this stuff is hard (especially live) but with 30m+ people watching and careers on the line they should be able to get it right. Anyway enough ranting...

American Idol Top 12 Guys. Wow.

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:44:58 -0600

There really is nothing more for us to say - the judges said it all:

Randy Jackson: Yo yo - what a way to end a great night man. I tell you what man, I loved you the day that I saw you because like you just throw all caution to the wind - you're always you, you sing great, I always feel like I'm seeing a true legend rock performer. You're like a Michael Hutchence dude, you don't here there's no like... you were the bomb tonight baby, that was hot, I love that.

Paula Abdul: It was an excellent way to end the night and you did set everyone on fire, I mean this was a great, great ending, it really was, and you are a great part of the show, you really are.

Simon Cowell: I would say Michael you are the most consistent contestant we've had. Every one of your auditions we've loved. I didn't like it as much as Bohemian Rhapsody by the way because I think you were over trying. But you have the natural charisma of a lead singer - you have just got it. No problem.

Ryan Seacrest: Now before the show you kind of said to me that you were worried about what Simon might think, thinking back to hollywood week right?

Michael Johns: Well you know when we chose these songs I didn't know that they were going to show my first, because I sang Light My Fire for a little bit in Hollywood Week so I wasn't sure like if Simon was going to go 'Ok, we've seen that, next'

Ryan Seacrest: Well I'm sure you're happy with this outcome then.

Michael Johns: Yeah, thanks guys.

Ryan Seacrest: Good job man.

MJF Video Podcast Launched on iTunes Store

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:14:10 -0600

You may have noticed that we've started including links to movie files in addition to the embedded players. This is because we've just launched a MJF Video Podcast which is integrated with this blog - subscribe by clicking on the podcast logo above, using the RSS link in your browser's address bar or by adding the URL of the blog (or the feed itself: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mjf) to your favourite podcast client (in iTunes you can do this ~~by selecting 'Subscribe to podcast...' from the 'Advanced' menu~~ directly from the iTunes Store).

Michael Johns through to American Idol 7 Top 24!

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:35:17 -0600

After blowing away the competition in Hollywood Week with renditions of The Doors' Light My Fire and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Mike unsurprisingly managed to make his way into the top 50 (from 164) and then on to the Top 24!

Ok so most of us have known this for a while already (since around the time of the filming of the Ford commercial at Pasadena City Hall) but we're sitting on the fence about posting spoilers so we thought we'd err on the side of caution.

The 12Mb movie file is MPEG-4 (H.264/AAC) formatted and optimised for iPhone.

Video: Hollywood Week - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:23:35 -0600

Here's the one we've all been waiting for, the Hollywood Round auditions.

Another unanimous 'yes' vote for Mike who blew the judges away with 'the best audition of the day':

Randy: 'Dog I've been a fan since day 1, I'm still a fan that was very nice, very nice'

Simon: Michael. Best audition of the day.

Randy, yes or no? Yes! Yes! Yes! Paula? Yes! Three 'yes's!

Ryan: Potentially the best so far - very good news.

'We've never had such positive feedback at this stage in the game which means the contestants still left to go have a lot to live up to.'

You can download the 14.5Mb movie file in MPEG-4 (H.264/AAC) format, optimised for iTunes.

Video: Hollywood Week - The Doors - Light My Fire

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:27:04 -0600

We've been a bit quiet lately but we're still here working away behind the scenes to bring Michael Johns followers lots of new goodies, including getting our hands on high definition video which many of you will have noticed is converted, transferred, edited, converted again and live on the MJF YouTube Channel and Facebook Page within a few hours of the shows!

Let's start with a clip from the Hollywood Round showing Mike (and Randy & Paula at the end) singing The Doors' Light My Fire. Three yes's and 'one of the best'.

You can grab the 3.9Mb movie file in MPEG-4 (H.264/AAC) format optimised for iPhone.

Vote for Mike in the Entertainment Weekly Week 3 Power Rankings

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:41:12 -0600

No doubt there'll be polls all over the place when they announce the top 24 next week but EW.com (who love Mike in this video) have one up and running already:

'American Idol' Week 3: Power Rankings

Update: Nice work - Mike's already at #2 position. Will be interesting to see how things shake out when 30 million viewers are added in the live polls!

Check out the MJF Forum

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:43:30 -0600

Now we've got the audition out of the way there's a window before things really heat up so why not go check out the MJF Forum? There's already over 100 posts across half a dozen forums made by 30+ users! In addition to information, updates and gossip you can find images, wallpapers, music, etc. too.

Update: Thanks to Rose, Jen, Jade & infinity for volunteering to help out as global moderators. This gives us a good team to start with and we can add some of the more active users to the team later on.

MySpace Profile created for Michael Johns Fans

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:25:11 -0600

G'day,

As many of you are already aware there's now a MySpace Profile for Michael Johns Fans (we already have 274 friends thanks to the ads being posted around - substantially more than the Facebook Page which has already grown organically to 39 fans).

If I weren't posting this from a mobile I'd upload a screenshot but this won't stop me saying thanks to a mother & daughter team (Rose & Jen) from San Antonio, TX who had already done a great job of setting up and customising the profile before joining the MJF team.

With the new additions we now have over a dozen team members tending to half a dozen mini-sites (MJF, Blog, Forum, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace), hundreds of friends & fans and a 6 figure hit count; not bad for a few weeks' work!

Happy (belated) Australia Day!

Entertainment Weekly 'Idolatry: there will be tears'

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:37:36 -0600

In week two of American Idol, Michael Slezak ponders the fate of a virgin, while Jessica Shaw swoons for an Australian hunk.

Mike: I know there's one that you particularly kind of liked.
Jessica: You are right Mike he comes from the land down under (if you will). I thought he was great. I thought his voice was amazing and who cares what his voice was because how hot was he in that shirt?
Mike: I was going to say 'did he ever sing' because he was just smoking hot, there's no getting around it.
Jessica: My drool actually shorted out my TV set.

Michael Johns' American Idol 7 Audition in San Diego

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:22:34 -0600

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for - Michael Johns' American Idol season 7 audition in San Diego!

Simon: I thought that was a very good audition Michael. You're like a white soul singer.

Paula: You've got good control, good soulful sound. I like you too.

Randy: You kinda made it your own, you turned it around the way you wanted to. I was very impressed - very good audition.

Randy, yes or no? 100, 1 million percent YES! Yes. You're through Michael!

WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD BABY!

ET Preview: Michael Johns a 'gem' in San Diego Auditions

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:13:00 -0600

Is Simon getting soft? Not according to Donny who shows Michael Johns, noting 'there's going to be some gems that come out of San Diego' according to his inside information!

Michael Johns Fans on Facebook

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:41:02 -0600

We've had some requests for a Facebook group but we've gone one further by creating a 'Michael Johns Fans' page, including videos, events, music, and some of the usual Facebook features (eg The Wall).

Haven't had time to add a lot of content yet as there's more important things to be doing (like editing and uploading the YouTube videos) but if you're on Facebook add yourself as a fan and get posting.

Keep the suggestions coming too, thanks to Rebecca in Atlanta for this one!

Amazing response with 100,000 YouTube Views!

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:52:00 -0600

Ok guys we're about to roll over 100,000 views for the 'American Idol 7 'Michael Johns' Commercial - 2 January' video, which is no surprise really given that for a week or two there it would come up as the first hit for 'American Idol' searches!

So the YouTube stats at the moment are around:

100,000 video views
2,500 channel views
100 comments
50 ratings
40 favourites
20 subscribers
10 friends
4-5 stars
2 honours

Update: Don't forget to get involved guys - create accounts and rate, favourite, friend, comment, etc. You can give comments the thumbs up or down and mark ads as 'spam' as well.

Michael Johns 'Fan Thread' spotted on Idol Forums

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:37:29 -0600

A guy from Atlanta wrote in to tell us about the Michael Johns Fan Thread that King Julien kicked off on the Idol Forums just before christmas. According to JoesPlace:

I hear that this guy was one of the three guys that the judges loved....look for him to be in the top 24

Wow! YouTube channel straight to Top 20!

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:32:35 -0600

In the first 24 hours the 'michaeljohnsfans' YouTube channel rocketed straight to the Top 20 Most Viewed channels and the 'American Idol 7 'Michael Johns' Commercial' hit the Top 50 with over 5,000 views! That's an amazing response - much better than we'd expected... thanks to those of you who spread the word by posting the link on FaceBook & MySpace and emailing it to your friends. And jonaatlanta, we hope you're right:

that is the winner. already settled.

YouTube Channel created for michaeljohnsfans

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:47:28 -0600

We've set up a YouTube channel where we'll be posting content that gets sent in to us. Don't forget to:

Watch the videos, link to them, email them, post them on MySpace & Facebook and so on
Rate them, favourite them, comment on them
Subscribe to the channel and add michaeljohnsfans as a friend

The more people that know about Michael the better the chance he has of winning!

(full size screenshot)

Television Ad sent in from Down Under

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:00:58 -0600

This ad was sent in by a guy in Perth, Western Australia - sounds like Mike but is it really him?:

Update: Turns out this wasn't a radio ad after all - someone from Australia wrote in to tell us they saw it on cable (Fox 8)! If you're in oz and manage to catch it on video then please send it in.

Update 2: Since we've no way to verify it is actually Mike we've redone the video with the idol logo instead of his cover art... last thing we want is to be accused of claiming someone else's performance :)

American Idol 7 commercial spotted on Fox 5

admin@michaeljohnsfans.com (Michael Johns Fans) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:23:27 -0600

New American Idol 7 ad spotted on Fox 5 around 2 January 2008 and submitted by a fan in Atlanta: