American Idol 2008 Results - Top 7 Announced - April 10
The American Idol Results show for week 8 of Season 7 live performances came a day later than usual which must have been an excruciatingly long wait for the Idol hopefuls. The show was postponed for it’s usual spot on Wednesday night because of the Idol Gives Back charity event which was so successful last year.
Unfortunately for the organizers, it doesn’t look like this year’s event was nearly as successful. Despite lining up more stars than a rap music video, the show was only able to pull in 17.5 million viewers, down from the 26.9 million that watched it last year. Last year’s show raised over $76 million was raised for underprivileged children while they’ve only garnered a little over $60 million thus far this year (although donations are still being accepted). I blame the show itself. By the fifteenth thousand time I heard a celebrity read (badly) a cue card with the IDOL AID phone number on it I wanted to shoot myself. By the second Miley Cirus performance, that left me feeling confused and a little dirty, I changed the channel.
Anyway, back to the results show. It was a doozy. We all knew an upset could come at any time, of course, but I don’t think anyone was expecting THIS upset at this point in the competition. If you’ll remember, this week was Inspirational Song week and our usual slate of favorites got turned upside down. If you missed the performance show on Tuesday night you can always watch the performance videos and read our recaps right here:
As I mentioned, this was an upset week. I still did pretty well on my bottom picks since I got two out of three correct. The one I missed was the upset and the big surprise. Just to refresh your memory, I placed the Top 8 performances in this order:
- Jason Castro - “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by Braddah Iz
- David Archuleta - “Angels� by Robbie Williams
- Kristy Lee Cook - “Anyway� by Martina McBride
- Michael Johns - “Dream On� by Aerosmith
- Syesha Mercado - “I Believe� by Fantasia
- Brooke White - “You’ve Got a Friend� by Carol King
- David Cook - “Innocent� by Our Lady Peace
- Carly Smithson - “The Show Must Go On� by Queen
For my picks of who would be in the bottom three I didn’t go with who I thought were the bottom three. I felt like David Cook had a bad performance but would be able to dodge this bullet on the strength of his past performances. Therefore, I felt that Syesha Mercado, Brooke White, and Carly Smithson would be the bottom three contestants and that this would be the week that Carly Smithson went home.
The actual bottom three ended up being:
- Syesha Mercado
- Michael Johns
- Carly Smithson
I thought Michael Johns had one of his better performances this week so I was stunned when he was named as being in the bottom three. I thought with David Cook’s poor performance this week, Michael had really shown that he was improving and that he had a chance to get even better. You can imagine my surprise then when I heard that Michael Johns was the one who was actually voted out! Crazy. I personally don’t agree with it, of course, but it happens pretty much every year. There’s always someone who gets voted out that we think shouldn’t. That’s just the way it works.
Why Syesha Mercado and Carly Smithson Made The Bottom Three
- Syesha Mercado - Syesha is trying to do too much with her song choices. She needs to pick songs that people recognize and enjoy (like Yesterday), but not songs that make people compare her to Whitney or past Idol winners like Fantasia. Syesha loses votes every time Simon tells her that she didn’t stack up when he compared her to the original artist. She needs to take songs that are a little less known and turn them into her own version of a Whitney type song. She has the skills to do it and if she pulled it off it would be incredibly impressive. At this point she simply isn’t standing out enough as a personality. People don’t feel like they know her or have a connection to her so they aren’t going to vote for her.
- Carly Smithson - Carly is just doing all kinds of things wrong right now. Her wardrobe is still a disaster and her song choices aren’t any better. She needs a makeover and she needs someone else to pick her songs. Carly has a really strong voice, but if she doesn’t pick exactly the right songs she’s never going to stand out. At this point, I think she’s waited too long to find her musical niche. She should have found her audience and established her musical style weeks ago. She didn’t do it and now it’s going to come back to bite her.
Why Michael Johns Lost American Idol
Michael simply waited too long to bring his game. Early on he was plagued by bad song choices while his most direct competition, David Cook, was establishing himself as the creative (and more talented) rocker. It didn’t help that the judges kept telling everyone that Michael wasn’t really a rocker and should be doing blues. Had he done blues he still wouldn’t have won. Michael wanted to do rock, but he almost looked like he was “rocker light” compared to the stuff David Cook was doing for the past several weeks. Since most of that niche was voting with someone else, Michael simply couldn’t get enough votes to keep him in the game.
The American Idol Top 7
- David Archuleta, 17, Murray, UT
- Jason Castro, 20, Rockwall, TX
- David Cook, 25, Tulsa, OK
- Kristy Lee Cook, 24, Selma, OR
- Syesha Mercado, 21, Miami, FL
- Carly Smithson, San Diego, CA
- Brooke White, 24, Van Nuys, CA
Michael Johns, 29, Los Angeles, CA(Top 8)Ramiele Malubay, 20, Miramar, FL(Top 9)Chikezie Eze, 22, Inglewood, CA(Top 10)Amanda Overmyer, 23, Mulberry, IN(Top 11)David Hernandez, 24, Glendale, AZ(Top 12)
If you’re keeping score with the little side contest Jeff (from Static ThinkBox) and I have going… Jeff and I both guess that Carly Smithson would be the contestant voted out this week. We were both wrong, of course. We have now fallen below .500 on the season. The current score is below.
For a quick recap from a slightly different perspective, swing by Static ThinkBox and see what Jeff has to say about the ousted contestants.
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