Yes you read the title right! Last night the American Idol judges twisted proceedings a little and at the end of the wild card round announced that this year, they were actually going to allow thirteen contestants through to the live finals rather than the usual twelve.

Anoop Desai, Jasmine Murray, Megan Corkrey and Matt Giraud will now join Jorge Nunez, Scott MacIntyre, Lil Rounds, Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Alexis Grace and Michael Sarver in next weeks first live show in the full size American Idol studio.

I think last night’s choice were all quite predictable and doubt that the judges made their decision on the spot. Each person who got through was definitely amongst the favourites in their original group and each has a massive fanbase out there in the real world, especially Anoop it would seem. Simon claimed that the decision to make the numbers up to thirteen was semi spontaneous, but I think it might just be the ’shocker’ talked about by Fox execs at the beginning of the season.