Can a Girl Win? Hollywood Week Continues at American Idol
I won’t carry on about tonight. This was a quick, one hour show with a lot going on. We saw a few faces that we haven’t seen in a while but mostly just so we could say goodbye. Before I go much further I want to talk about how we get a girl to win Idol instead of any kind of guy with a guitar. There are a ton of amazingly talented girls that made it through tonight. Let’s be honest, at this point they can all sing well and we know that. I think what the judges and producers fail to see in the female contestants is how relatable they are and then how they can promote that quality instead of the manufactured personas we are left with. Look back at Kelly, Carrie and Fantasia. They were all other-worldly singers but each of them also got to have a personality that we wanted to cheer for. Lately, Idol has a way of turning these uber-talented girls into cat-fighting, blubbering hormone monsters and it takes away from the qualities we were organically drawn to.
Tristan McIntosh is probably one of the best singers on the show this year but tonight they put together a clip of her crying like a spoiled teenager (she is 15) about not getting her first song choice. I love this girl but I lost respect for her because she was whining. As a matter of fact, they showed a whole bunch of girls crying tonight while the guys were playing high-five games. Last week we had to watch Sonika Vaid and Stephany Negrete fight with Anatolia Villaranda and the focus of the fight was on the girls and their backstabbing. I don’t even know these girls but decided I didn’t like them based on production edits. Andrew came out of that whole drama virtually unscathed (and still not too well-known) but I digress. My point, if you want a girl to win, stop making them all look whiny, brittle and ill-mannered.
On to my top five performances of the night:
- Mackenzie Bourg did an original song “Roses” and it impressed the judges a lot. It impressed me a lot too. Plus, I love his quirky dance moves.
- Lee Jean is heartbreakingly cute according to Harry and the good news, he is also talented. He continued to make everyone fall in love with him tonight. I could have done without the forced teenage romance between Lee and Sara Sturm but his performance was perfect.
- Tristan McIntosh finally got to sing her song and she did it so well but the package about her crying made me mad. Not at her but the process of the clips affecting my opinions so much. I’m going to skip them from now on.
- Jessical Cabral is my frontrunner right now. She doesn’t get wrapped up in any drama that the producers feel we need to see and she slays it every time she steps on the stage. I think she has the personality and the voice to go far if producers don’t mess her up.
- Dalton Rapattoni busted into a timely and tweaked rendition of Hopelessly Devoted to You. Shortly after his performance he said his guitar wasn’t working and he just sort of went fuzzy and didn’t remember much else. If he can be that creative when he is fuzzy, I want more!
We said goodbye to new dad Joshua Wickers who was an early favorite of mine but he underperformed tonight. Another shocking elimination was John Wayne Shulz who did a Keith Urban song tonight without his signature black cowboy hat. I thought he was a sure thing given reality show history with male country singers but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. They didn’t give us a real great rundown of the goodbyes tonight so other than personality-plus hopeful Joy Dove, that’s all I can think of without digging too much.
Tomorrow night the remaining 51 move on to the “Showcase” round which was a train wreck for a lot of frontrunners last year. Let’s hope these kids took good notes last year. See you tomorrow.