I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why the American Idol judges keep certain contestants that are so far outmatched, sending home singers that could actually have a shot at winning the entire thing. The phenomenon has happened on every season, I’m sure. Judges Katy, Lionel, and Luke narrowed the field down to 24 last week and last night, half of those performed for our votes. Overall, it was a rather lackluster episode. My criteria, and maybe this is too harsh, but I judge each song on whether we’ll be talking about it during the week or months afterwards. For example, last season almost every time Iam Tongi took the stage was better than the week before and wowed everyone… especially with his rendition of “Don’t Let Go.” So did the first voting round of season 22 blow me away? Not exactly. But there were 2 performances that stood out to me.
Abi Carter “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)”…
McKenna Breinholt “The Story”…
The rest were good but nothing you’d write home about. I’ll just say it: Most were boooooorrrrrriing. Except for one. It was entertaining for all the wrong reasons and because of that, I need to compliment the judges. While I miss Simon Cowell is for his brutal honesty, current judges (who care about their own careers, too, understandably) take a different slant on critiques. This can make it hard when a performance is subpar. I applaud Luke, Lionel, and Katy for crafting their criticisms in a constructive way but deep down, I bet they want to say, “You kinda suck.” Or as Simon might say, “You can hear better singers drunk in a karaoke bar.” Yes, I’m talking about Blake Proehl’s performance.
I have no doubt that Blake was a hell of a football player. Making it to the highest level (the NFL) means only one thing: You’re the elite of the elite. That’s impressive, for sure. But just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you’re good at something else, too. It still ticks me off that the judges selected him to be in the top 24 when Ziggy, Scarlett Lee, and 57.3 other singers were obviously so much better. Blake might get by this first round of cuts mostly due to his charm and good looks, but sooner or later (it’ll be sooner), his deficient singing ability will be too obvious to overlook.
-Out of the Wilderness
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Out of the Wilderness 