The more I listen to this week’s performances the more I realize that some of these people are really good singers that had a below average night. It’s not surprising on Idol for the first week to be semi-disastrous. Some contestants that have barely made it through the top 24, went through and in one case ended in the top 6, Anoop Desai for example, who had to be brought back by the judges as a wildcard.
Yesterday was the first elimination and I’m not entirely happy about how it turned out, I think there were people that deserved to go home more than who did, at least on the guys side. But , this is American Idol, and at the end of the day, the voters decide, unless the producers shovel someone down our throats and we fall for it.
If the judges have a wildcard round this season, which I haven’t heard about yet and haven’t seen it on the Idol calendar I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring Tyler Grady, but it’s very early to tell since not a lot of them have been eliminated yet. I like that guy, yeah I know, his chin is humongous and distracting at times, but I think he has a cool voice and I like how he performs, give him a bottle of Jack, throw him in a sewer for an hour and he can be the male Ke$ha.
At this point in the competition, with one week down, my favorites are the following.
Today was the first night we could actually watch all the girls sing, some of them were at a disadvantage, because this was the first time we were seeing them, but it helped in making it a very underwhelming night. Also, the microphones wer sounding messed up. So, here is how it should turn out this week in my opinion.
The Best: Lilly Scott - Like her style and her jazzy voice. Didi Benami – I really liked her tonight, maybe it’s because I like that song. But she was good. Siobhan Magnus – My favorite. Kickass name, powerful voice, quirky persona and a blowtorch. I like her a lot. Crystal Bowersox – She could go all the way if she keeps it up, she’s different, loved that she played the harmonica. Her teeth apparently were whitened, that’s a plus.
The Middle: Katelyn Epperly – She was alright but her clothes and lipstick were just a bad choice. Paige Miles - I think this girl has a nice voice but she was the prime victim of the horrible mic. Janelle Wheeler – Meh. Kinda flat and weak. I think there could be something there but I don’t see it yet. Katie Stevens – The only good thing is that she brought memories of when Adam Lambert brought the house down with this song. She doesn’t sound bad, but looks old fashioned.
The Worst: Haeley Vaughn – I just don’t like her, I believe she needs to learn to control herself, especially her smile, too overpowering. Ashley Rodriguez - Another victim of the audio, plus she is no Leona Lewis. Wanted to love her but couldn’t. Michelle Delamor - The judges liked her, for me she wasn’t anything special. Pretty but that’s it. Lacey Brown – She’s this season’s staple Fuschia girl. I wanted her to do great but almost fell asleep during her performance.
I think anyone in my middle or worst lists can go home and not be missed too much.
Really looking forward to the guys tomorrow, without having them performed my favorites are Tyler Grady, Andrew Garcia and Casey James, let’s see if anything changes.
Who were your favorites tonight? Who should go home?
Latoya London. Remember her? She was part of the trio of Divas along Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia Barrino on the third season of Idol. It doesn’t help being in the same trio with the only Idol contestant that after coming on 6th place went on to win an Academy Award, a Grammy and more than 20 additional awards.
Maybe you don’t remember this but she was never seen on Idol before the public vote performances. It was there when her awesome rendition of “All by Myself” put her in the spotlight, with even the judges giving her a standing ovation. It was one of those moments on Idol where I thought: “Wow, this girl is great”. She did well in the competition, her performances were good for the most part, her vocals flawless almost every single time. But… she lacked something, and Simon made sure to remind us almost every time she was on screen, Personality. See, she had the talent, but in shows like these it pays to show a special something, that something that will make people talk about you the next day while they are at work and go on with their daily lives. Fantasia did it that season and she ended up winning the prize. Latoya ended in 4th place behind two other girls which were good but in my opinion not as good as her. David Cook did it in his season, bringing songs that everyone knows to a whole new level. Adam Lambert did it by switching it up so much that he was barely recognizable from one week to the next and even through scandalous performances outside of Idol it is paying off, his first album “For your Entertainment” has already gone Gold, selling more than 500k copies.
Idol producers and judges are notorious for “pimping” some contestants. These are the ones that you see in almost every episode since the beginning of the season, you see them in the TV commercial spots and they usually bring a sad story to give them a little push. This can work in two ways, it can make or break. It can make you fall in love with someone’s talent or get awfully tired of them by the time they hit the Top 12. The latter happened to me with David Archuleta two seasons ago, I got very, very tired of him. Sometimes the producers do this because these contestants show to be more marketable or because their stories will work good on TV for ratings, some times it is because of sheer talent.
This season, there are several contestants in the Top 24 who I know nothing about. I mean, they may have shown them but compared to, for example, Andrew Garcia and Casey James, they have barely received any screen time. Michelle Delamor and Paige Miles are two that at the moment are suffering the “Latoya London Syndrome”. Either their performances weren’t memorable enough to show or they were shown and well… they weren’t memorable to me. Maybe they are the best in the competition and we don’t know it yet. Maybe the producers want us to be as surprised with their performances as we were several years ago with Latoya. It brings freshness and excitement to the show if that is the reason behind it.
I guess we will have to wait and see, many say that a girl will win this season.
Who knows? We may be in for a surprise.
I leave you with Latoya London’s performace of “All by Myself” which Simon Cowell called: “A superb, outstanding performance“.
