Top 20: Elimination Results (SPOILER ALERT!)

Guys, sorry for the delay with this post. It's been a whirlwind weekend!

Last Thursday we had our first elimination of the "real" season. The first elimination is always the hardest to predict because any one of the contestants can get sent home. No one has truly had the opportunity to build a large fan base, so every vote matters. Every off note is sewed to your chest like a Scarlet Letter and the voters make you pay for it dearly. Now, of course there are the front runners (the Andrew Garcia's, Casey James', and Katie Stevens') every season, but this year seems to have a wider disparity between the good, the bad, and the ugly, with not much good.


With that said, let's see how this elimination results show shook down.

The top 24 performed a surprisingly good version of Estelle's "American Boy," the same song that Janell Wheeler impressed the judges with in Hollywood week. All in all, it wasn't that bad! There was good blend and their pitch seemed to be on. All this leads me to believe that it was lip-synced, but I forgot to watch out for that. Drats. It was a little odd when the guys entered in and started singing the lyrics "I'm likin this American boy, American boy." Casey James' face was priceless!

Wasting no time, Ryan has all the girls seated on the stage and begins the process of eliminating the first girl from the show. Now, through each elimination of the night, AI fails horribly in the suspense factor. You know who's going home almost immediately just by how they are standing. Then, after 4 of the girls are deemed safe and it's only Katie Stevens and Janell Wheeler left standing, well I think we know who is the weaker link. No shock at all that Janell was the first contestant in the top 24 to be sent home. Her sing-along version of a Heart classic was the last nail in her coffin. Granted, she sang the song better after her elimination, but it still lacked any punch whatsoever. Janell, glad you were on the show, but this was not undeserved.

Next, we had a performance from Allison Iraheta. First of all, I really liked this song. She performed her second single, "Scars" from her debut album "Just Like You." It was a very haunting type of song that fit her raspy voice well. Second of all, she still has a lot to learn about performing. She jumped at the camera with a mean mug during a relatively soft spot in the ballad. Yea, that didn't work, Allison. Third, she would have wiped the floor with this season had she just waited a year to audition. She is head and shoulders better than any of the contestants this year. She still has that same youthful joy that made her endearing on season 8. And she can still give one heck of an awkward interview. I miss having her on the show. Can we just rerun season 8 instead of this current one? I can learn to suspend my disbelief.

The second elimination for the ladies side was next. Seeing the bottom row, I was confident that Lacey would be sent home. She should have been sent home, but the American Idol gods love to curse me the first week. The choice for the second female eliminated came to Ashley Rodriguez and Didi Benami. Yea, again, way to fail at suspense, Idol. Didi was obviously safe and Ashley was sent home. I liked Ashley a lot, but I don't think she connected with the voters as anything more than a pretty face and decent voice. She seemed way too fake and that probably made people turn to other voting options. The curse that I mentioned earlier is this: Whichever girl I think is the most attractive will automatically get eliminated the first week. The same thing happened with Ann Marie Boskovich last season. Oh well :(. She should have done a song that wasn't as generic for her. She just didn't know how to play the game very well, and she paid the price (however undeservedly) for it. We (or maybe just I) will miss you, Ashley.

The guys were up next. The top row went first and was comprised of a bunch of guys who did well enough, except for Tim Urban. He looked to be the sure-bet to go home, but much to everyone's surprise (except mine), it was Joe Munoz who was sent packing. Good job this go round, Idol. Joe obviously has a much better voice than Tim, but he didn't have the puppy eyes to get swarms of teenage girls to vote for him. Tim Urban is safe for another week. Called it. Joe fell to the curse of having no screen time. Every year, there is undoubtedly one contestant who is an unknown that gets cut for that very reason. Fair? Probably not, but maybe he should have been more interesting during the initial auditions. Just sayin...

It was a two-fer in terms of last year's AI stars coming back to the show. Kris Allen performed a very emotional rendition of "Let It Be," with all proceeds from the songs download going to the Haiti relief efforts. You can tell that Kris has been performing a lot since Idol. He looked so much more comfortable up on the stage than he did last year at this time. He would also kill the competition this year, I feel like. I won't even mention what Lambert would have done. I really liked his version of this song and his vocals were very strong. If you haven't listed to his new album, "Kris Allen," you should. There are some really good songs up there.

Finally, it got down to the last elimination. It came down to Alex Lambert (no surprise) and Tyler Grady (I can see why). I didn't like either of them, but I was sure going into the results show that Alex would be the one to go (sort of like I was sure Lacey would leave too). I was wrong. Tyler was sent on his way. I'm ok with this because he showed that he was the least talented vocally and he made it way too far based on this far fetched persona that he could never fully live up to. To prove it, they didn't even let him sing his full song before they cut the feed. Oh well. Alex has a lot to work on this week if he wants to stay on any longer. I can't see him making it into the top 12.

Well, there you have it folks. Did America get it right? Were any of the eliminations shocking?! Let me know what you think. And, again, sorry for the delayed post.

Your American Idol Junkie,

Billy