Okay, for those of you who know me fairly well, this may come as a bit of a surprise. I have become a really big fan of American Idol, something that started about 2 years ago with season 5. There have been some really good singers in these past few seasons, as the show is attracting a lot more rock-minded competitors than the first four seasons. Daughtry, Bo Bice, and Taylor Hicks in seasons past.
This season sees Michael Johns who was eliminated a few weeks ago, David Cook who is still in the competition, and Carly Smithson who was eliminated from the competition tonight. Anybody who follows American Idol already knows that Mrs. Smithson had a record deal and a failed debut album, but she was an awesome singer who very nearly put in a remarkable performance each and every week from the Hollywood 2nd Round Auditions.
Her performance this week, during Andrew Lloyd Webber week, was easily her best performance. Singing Superstar, from Jesus Christ Superstar (the first musical I really ever heard in its entirety when I was young) was absolutely a perfect fit. High praise from the judges apparently wasn't enough to get her to advance to the next week. My fiancee and I did our parts to vote for her...and we only vote for the people we feel put on the best performances, despite whether we like them or not. Hell, I even voted for Kristy Lee Cook a few times when she put on a good performance (which was a rare occurence) because I really hated her.
Joining Carly in the bottom was Syesha Mercado...another singer who put in one of the best performances of her time on Idol thus far. Randy Jackson nailed tonight's bottom vote-getters with his comment about it being a popularity vote week. Jason Castro and David Archuletta had no F**KING business being safe.
Their performances were crap, and hell, Jason didn't even know S**T for S**T about his song choice, which was one of the most famous Broadway songs ever written and performed! It's F**King MEMORY, dammit, from CATS....the longest running Broadway musical of ALL TIME.
So if you're a fan of Idol this week and you voted for either of the two performers mentioned in the previous two paragraphs, get your heads out of your asses and vote for the best SINGERS, not the ones you think are HOT!
Sorry for my little rant, I'm sure that Carly will get another chance in the music industry after Idol, so it's not all bad...but she should have gone so much farther than 6th place!