American Idol
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It was another kind of odd night. The first singer had won contests and was really surprised when the judges didn’t care for her singing. That left the door open for Robbie Carrico, former boy band singer and former boyfriend of Brittany Spears, to get the first golden ticket to Hollywood. I don’t have a lot to say about Robbie. He was okay. I wasn’t thrilled, but I definitely thought he should go to Hollywood.

Then there was a surprise golden ticket given to Venezuelan Galeb Emachah. I know that sometimes they give tickets to people just because they bring something different to the table, and I can only assume that’s what happened in this case because I thought there were plenty of people they’d said no to who were better. Of course, maybe they were just desperate for a male to say yes to, since the rest of the night was pretty much females.

We’ve had two weeks in a row where singers who come in as a package have both done well. Tonight it was Corliss Smith and Brittany Wecott’s turn to audition together. They were funny and entertaining— so much so that I was sure their singing was going to be terrible. What a pleasant surprise when Corliss started to sing. She had a nice jazzy voice. Brittany followed up with an equally good performance. Both were sent through to Hollywood.

Suzanne Toon was up next. She’s a single mom who really wants this a lot. She had a nice voice and a good look, so maybe she’ll be the next American Idol.

Tiny Ramiele Malubay caught the judges’ eyes with her petite stature and big voice. It was funny to me that they never really showed her standing next to anyone, so even though they kept talking about how small she was, you could never really tell. I guess we’ll find out when we see her in Hollywood.

The first time I heard Syesha Mercado sing, I thought she sounded really good. But when I listened to the audition a second time, I thought perhaps she was a bit screechy. Still, she seemed nice and terribly optimistic. Her father had recently gotten out of rehab, and she was very sweet to him. I hope that she does somewhat better during the next round of auditions, or I don’t think she’ll be around for very long.

Finally, we saw two more females get tickets. There was no back story given for these two, but Natashia Blach’s performance was probably my favorite of the evening. I didn’t really find out enough about the next singer, Ilsy Lorena Pinot, to form an opinion one way or another. She sang a song I’d never heard. I guess it sounded good enough, but it was hard to really decide whether I liked her, or not.

So, that was it for Miami. 17 golden tickets were given out, and we saw 9 of those perform. That should feel more satisfying but, for some reason, it just didn’t.

I think next week is the last week of preliminary auditions. That should put us in Chicago and Los Angeles. So, check back during the week for interesting tidbits and don’t forget to vote for your favorites from this week.

Here are the results from last week’s poll. Looks like David Archuleta and Carly Smithson were clear favorites.

Who was your favorite singer this week?
Tetiana Ostapowych: 5% (1)
Perrie Cataldo: 5% (1)
Michael Johns: 5% (1)
Samantha Musa: 9% (2)
David Archulet: 32% (7)
Carly Smithson: 18% (4)
Michelle Lampkin: 5% (1)
Jefferey Lampkin: 9% (2)
Amy Flynn: 5% (1)
London Weidberg: 5% (1)
Oliver Highman: 5% (1)
Total Votes : 22

Tonight American Idol arrived in the Heartland in Omaha, Nebraska. Paula’s flight was delayed, which meant that the first several contestants had to face Randy and Simon alone. In spite of this (or maybe because of it) Simon seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood.

Chris Bernheisel was the first contestant to witness Simon’s generous mood. From the moment we saw Chris, I knew that Idol was about to mess up my theory about the first contestant making it through. I was correct, but what I didn’t expect was that Simon would encourage Chris to pursue a correspondent position to cover the finale for the local Omaha affiliate. He even seemed to promise that Idol would put in a good word if the affiliate didn’t immediately agree. How serious was he, and will Chris get a gig covering Idol? I simply don’t know (I’ll look into it tomorrow and let you know what I can find), but I do know that was the happiest contestant ever who didn’t make it through to Hollywood.

Jason Rich also benefitted from Simon’s good mood. He had to start over several times singing “When You Say Nothing At All”. Simon was actually quite patient, encouraging him to take his time and to think of the words. I’m sure the fact that he sounded good and Simon actually thought he might want to send him to Hollywood was part of the reason. When Jason finally got his nerves under control and finished singing his audition piece, he got two thumbs up from Randy and Simon, but Simon told him this was his one second chance. Still, at least for now, he’s still a contestant.

Paula arrived before we saw the third contestant, Rachael Wicker. Rachael is an arm wrestler (at least an amateur one— are there professional arm wrestlers?). She also is a singer who likes the country yodel sound. My Mom is visiting, and she said Rachael sounded like Dolly Parton. I think she’s right. No one was overly thrilled with Rachael, but they were thrilled enough to send her through to Hollywood.

After a professional wrestler’s audition, Ryan asked why they hadn’t put her through, and that’s when things got a bit punchy. Ryan ended up trading places with Paula, who went out to make small talk with the contestants. If the producers had really wanted to make this entertaining, they would have sent Simon out to make nice and speak pleasantries— THAT would have been funny! So, into this weird adventure walks Samantha Sidley, who looked thoroughly confused to see Ryan sitting in Paula’s place. It didn’t stop her from singing a very nice version of “Don’t Know Why”, but I do think it may have impeded her performance somewhat— not enough to keep her out of Hollywood, though.

After Samantha, we had a quick overview of three performers who made it through: Elizabeth Erkert, Denise Jackson ad Michael Sanfilippo. I got the distinct impression that these three were edited in later to either fill time or perhaps in response to criticism about the extremely small number of people we’ve seen who have successfully made it through to Hollywood.

Angelica Puente was the touching story of the evening. At 17, she has moved out of the house because of arguments with her Dad. In spite of this, he paid for her to come to the audition, and she really wanted to make him proud. She sang with a big voice and was pretty good, even though she did come across as a bit imitative. In spite of some reservations about her lack of originality, the judges sent her through to Hollywood.

We did have a rocker this evening: David Cook. He watched Chris Daughtry’s audition to get some pointers on making it through. He really needn’t have worried. His performance of “Living on a Prayer” was much better than anything I ever heard Chris Daughtry sing. I don’t know that the judges would agree with that statement, but they did agree he deserved to continue on in the competition.

The final singer we saw tonight was Leo Marlowe. Leo is from a tiny town in Iowa. He was really nice and funny. When asked whether he was popular, he said his mother always said she’d raised a homecoming queen— and that it was too bad it wasn’t one of her daughters. He could be fun to keep around. We’ll at least have one more chance to see him, since the judges unanimously voted him through after he sang “Song For You”. Not only was he entertaining, he could sing, as well.

In all, 19 singers made it through from the Omaha auditions. I’m curious to see how many will make it through tomorrow in Miami.

First, I need to post a correction. I misspelled David’s name. It should be ArchuletA. I’m not the only one, since I’ve seen it spelled without the a on several sites. Sorry, David. I’ll try to write legibly from now on so that I can read my own writing.

Second, I wanted to share with you some places where you can find out more about David Archuleta.

You can check out the David Archuleta fans’ My Space page. There are several recordings of David singing on the site, so if you loved his audition and really want to hear more of him, head on over there.

There is a placeholder for www.davidarchuleta.com, so that MAY be an indication he made it through in Hollywood. It’s probably at least an indication that he (or someone) is hoping to profit from his American Idol appearance.

Here’s David on Star Search. I don’t know how old he was here. Eight? Nine? Well, it looks like he won when he was 12, so maybe he’s closer to 12.

Here’s a clip of him singing to the contestants waiting to audition for American Idol Season 1. Clearly, he was too young to audition at the time.

And here’s his Season 7 audition, in case you missed it:

Wow, tonight’s episode was kind of a waste of time if you don’t like to watch the bad auditions. Oliver Highman was supposed to be the first singer of the night, but his wife decided to go into labor, so we spent quite a bit of tonight’s show watching them try to find the hospital and wait to have a baby. Unfortunately, when he finally made it back as the last singer of the night, we didn’t see him make it to Hollywood. Personally, I didn’t think he was all that bad. I thought, given the fact that he’d just been at the hospital with his wife having a baby, that perhaps he was worth a second listen.

So, instead of watching the first person make it through, we saw a series of odd, weird and just plain bad auditions. Even the ones who made it through were a bit weird. Take Michelle and Jefferey Lampkin, for example. I know we’ve seen people audition as couples before, and the brother and sister were okay, but their audition was a bit strange. I think the judges were right that the brother was better than the sister, but they sent them both through.

Then there was Amy Flynn. Amy seems like a sweet girl, and I thought her performance of “Reflection” was pretty good, especially compared to the rest of what South Carolina had to offer. But before we got to hear her sing, we got to hear her abstinence speech— not that I have a problem with abstinence speeches, especially by 16 year olds, but on American Idol? Really? Was that necessary? And apparently Simon’s new catch phrase that guarantees you’re going to make it through is “you’re not as good as you think you are”. I believe this is the third time this season he has said that to someone who he then sent through.

London Weidberg was the next to make it through, singing “Good Morning Heartache”. She also was good but not great. I really wanted to be wowed by her. I just wasn’t.

So, that was it. Out of twenty-three people who made it through, we saw four. FOUR. For those of you counting, that’s one every 15 minutes of an hour long show. So, for those who like the bad auditions, I guess tonight was great. For the rest of us, I only hope things get better from here.

By the way, since there were so few people shown tonight, I’m just going to add them to the poll already in progress. I’ll lose some results, but you can just vote again if you already voted.

This week held true to form for this season with the first person being a yes. Even though Simon thought Tetiana Ostapowych was good, not great, it didn’t stop the judges from sending her through to Hollywood.

Next up was the tear jerker story of the night. Perrie Cataldo is a single father to a CUTE four year old boy, whose mother was killed several years ago. Perrie sang “I’ll Make Love to You”. It’s always hard for me to judge songs like that because it’s really not my kind of music. I don’t really think anyone sounds very good singing it. I will say Perrie seemed nice enough, and he didn’t sound BAD— just not my style.

Next up was another audition that confused me a little bit. Michael Johns is originally from Australia. He sang “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”. I DO like that kind of music, but I had no idea which way the judges were going to go. I thought he sounded okay, but he also sounded a lot like a lot of people that I think sounded just “okay” who then get told “no”. So, go figure, this time they sent him through.

Samantha Musa brought her sister for backup. Samantha and her sister are both HUGE Simon fans. Her sister even got to sit with Simon for the audition. Samantha’s performance of “Until You Come Back to Me” was one of my favorite performances of the night. I thought she was really good and very natural, and the judges liked her, as well.

Sixteen year old David Archulet had to overcome a paralyzed vocal cord to get to the American Idol auditions. He sounded fine tonight. I was impressed that he chose “Waiting On the World to Change”, which was actually a song that suited his age quite well.

The final singer that we saw make it through tonight was familiar with American Idol. Carly Smithson made it through to Hollywood in Season 5, only to have visa problems disqualify her. Visa issues behind her, she sang a great version of “I’ve Every Woman”. I think she’s definitely one to watch.

So, thirty people from San Diego made it through to Hollywood. Tomorrow night finds the Idol auditions in South Carolina. Personally, it kind of looked like a train wreck to me. But it looks like Simon may get a new pet, so maybe it’s not a total loss. Be sure to take our poll and weigh in on your San Diego favorites.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked Drew. He seemed incredibly decent, but I can’t help but notice that over 30 of you, at present count, thought he was the best audition in Dallas. Are you legitimate fans, or Vote for the Worst people intent on throwing off even early tallies of who’s popular? I’m really interested to hear what the attraction is. So, someone who voted for him, speak up in the comments. What is it that you like about Drew Poppelreiter?

You don’t find a whole lot about Kyle Ensley’s singing when you look him up online. He did receive and impressive State Department Fellowship. You can check out his fraternity. Then there are a few more locations where you can find him listed for various positions he holds at OSU. You can see his audition below.

Search for Drew Poppelreiter, and you’ll see that he’s a very popular topic of Idol chatter right now. But if you REALLY search, you can find him a couple of places that have nothing to do with Idol.

Here he is at the 2005 Dixie National Livestock Show.

Here’s a snippet about him performing a free concert at the Meridian Community Living Center.

Here’s information about him performing after winning the local March of Dimes talent competition.

You can read about him entertaining Mississippi Public Safety Communication Officials here.

There’s nothing major out there, but it does give you a better idea of what his singing background is. He’s clearly done more than sing on the tractor. But at least I haven’t recorded any previous record contracts.

In case you missed Drew’s audition, you can see it below.

You can learn more about Jessica reading this article in her hometown paper.

And here’s Jessica’s audition, in case you missed it:

I’m going to TRY (I make no promises) to bring you the web information on each of the contestants who have web information.

Brandon Green has a MySpace page that’s pretty well developed, so for more information on him, check out his MySpace page.

And, in case you missed it, here’s his audition.

The Dallas auditions were broadcast tonight, and they were, well, weird. Let’s completely ignore the fact that someone gave birth waiting for their audition. Let’s toss out the guy who wrote a song giving tribute to Simon. It was still a bit weird. Not that there wasn’t some talent, I was just really surprised at who made it through and who didn’t.

Perhaps this year we can expect that the first audition will be someone good, since we now have a two night precedent. Jessica Brown is a former meth user who is now a stay at home Mom in Longview, Texas. She sang “I’ll Stand By You” and was quite good.

Alaina Whitaker sure sounded like she was going to be horrible. She had all the earmarks— cocky, said she could sing anything, you know we’ve seen them sing before, only to be shot down. But, as they say, “It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true”. Simon didn’t think she was as good as she thought she was, but she was good enough to make it to Hollywood. I do have to say that perhaps she’s not cocky. She is only 16 (the youngest we’ve seen so far), and sometimes youth make mistakes in how they present themselves.

Bruce Dickson was my first surprise of the night. He’s a 19 year old who’s never kissed a girl because he’s saving that first kiss for his wedding. Personally, I think it’s a sweet idea. His audition wasn’t fabulous, but it was okay and, because of the build up, I had already written down his name and was taking notes, thinking he would be going on to Hollywood. But, no, he wasn’t. When he asked for advice, Randy’s only words that made it to air were “Go kiss some girls”. I hope the rest of the judges’ advice made it to the cutting room floor because I’d hate to think that he was kept from Hollywood because he hadn’t kissed anyone.

Pia “Zpia” Easley was up next. She’s a background singer and model and sang quite well. Frankly, I was too busy still mulling over Bruce to really pay a lot of attention. I couldn’t find out any information about Pia’s background singing and modeling, so at least she’s not another “ringer”.

One of the grossest things tonight was Brandon Green’s ziplock bag of peeled fingernails, which he’s been collecting for years. Ewww. Fortunately, his singing was better than his hobby. Simon dubbed him forgettable. Randy and Paula were ready to put him through, but then he almost talked himself out of a ticket by talking about how great Simon was. They didn’t hold it against him for too long, though, and ultimately gave him his trip to Hollywood.

Kayla Hatfield was my next surprise of the evening. She was the survivor of a horrible accident when she was 18, losing the sight in one eye and suffering severe damage to one side of her face. Despite these hardships, she was perhaps the happiest contestant ever. She had a tiny baby doll voice but sang Janice Joplin with a gravelly, raspy voice. She wasn’t great, in my opinion, but Simon was so impressed with her attitude that he sent her to Hollywood. Paula said no, but Simon appealed to Randy to give her a chance. I couldn’t believe she was heading to the next round.

Katie Malloy had a slightly strange audition, as well. She does singing impersonations (quite good ones, actually). She sang Brittany Spears and then was supposed to sing as herself. But her version of a Carrie Underwood song sounded like, well, Carrie Underwood. When she switched to a song by a male (“Unchained Melody”) she sounded like herself and got the compliment from Simon that she was the best they’ve seen this season.

Kyle Ensley was another surprise. So much so that I fast forwarded through his audition because, from the intro, I was so convinced that it was going to be horrible. Then I saw him walking out with a yellow piece of paper and had to rewind and watch it again. I didn’t think he was fabulous, but Simon was clearly in a good or perverse mood. I’m not honestly sure which. He convinced the others to send Kyle through.

Colton Swon was quite good, I thought, but the judges seemed ho hum about him. I thought, “you put Kyle through, but not this guy?” But then they decided to send him to Hollywood, too, so I guess that’s okay.

I really liked Drew Poppelreiter. Okay, maybe not his singing (it was okay), but he sure seemed super nice and awfully decent. The farmer boy sang country decently, but I’m concerned he would struggle with anything else.

The final contestant of the night that we saw was Nina Shaw. She was very tall and looked like a model. She started with a Whitney Houston song and was immediately told she was too old fashioned by Simon (funny, I thought her legs were long enough for him to overlook any minor issues with her singing). She sang a second song and even though it still didn’t convince Simon, it was good enough to convince Randy and Paula.

So, those are the contestants from Dallas. In all, 24 made it through. Next week we’ll see the San Diego contestants. Check back in the meantime for any news that comes up during the week and interesting videos of contestants.

Last night was the beginning of American Idol Season 7. I wasn’t blown away by any of the performers last night— there was no one that I thought, “If they don’t make it to final 12, there’s no justice”. BUT there were several good singers. Here’s the recap of those who made it through last night.

Joey Catalano was first up. He’s lost over 200 pounds. From his intro, I couldn’t tell whether they were building him up to be really good or really bad. He sang the Maroon 5 song, “Sunday Morning”, and was actually quite good. I’m not sure he’s really a standout. But you never can tell what Hollywood will bring. An interesting fact is that Joey Catalano won a contest on a local television show that allowed him to skip standing in line at the auditions.

Melanie Nyema was up next. She was a backup singer for Taylor Hicks and has done quite a bit of singing (she’s all over the internet if you search her name). Since The Next Great American Band was fronted by a backup singer for Carrie Underwood, maybe this is a new way to break into music— be a backup singer for an American Idol winner. Melanie sang “Unwritten”. She’s a very cute girl with a good voice, but I wasn’t crazy about her actual performance skills.

They put up three singers back to back who all made it through: Jenot Joyner, singing “The Blues” by Elton John; Jose Candelaria, who sang a Spanish version of “Unbreak My Heart”; and Jonathan Baines, a 17 year old who sang a song I didn’t write down (sorry). All three were good, but I think that Jose Candelaria stood out the most as a possibility for making it down the road. Since he sings in Spanish, that gives him the “unique” factor that American Idol likes to promote.

Angela Martin is another person who may make it far, if she can “de-weddingize” her singing (Simon’s word, not mine). She has an interesting back story as a single Mom whose daughter has Rett’s Syndrome. I mean, the back story alone won’t put her through, but she was pretty good singing “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. Simon was right that she needs to get rid of some of the habits she has acquired as a wedding singer, but we’ve seen wedding singers do alright in the past (remember that Season 3 finalist La Toya London was a wedding singer). Angela has a lot of qualities that could help her go quite far in American Idol— interesting, sympathetic back story, nice looking, good voice. Time will tell.

Another singer with an interesting background is Kristy Lee Cook. She’s a cute blonde cage fighting horse trainer. Yes, you heard me. She trains for cage fighting, and she raises horses. The really interesting part was that she had a very nice country voice, which she showcased singing “Amazing Grace”. Is she the next Carrie Underwood? An interesting tidbit about Kristy is that she’s already had a shot at fame. When she was in her mid-teens, she was signed by RCA on their Arista label. Around that time, she was also represented by Britney Spears’ production company— B&L productions. She was dropped by Arista (along with many other young performers) when she was 17. She did eventually release a CD called “Devoted”, and she was even cast in a movie that was supposed to film in 2006 (I didn’t find the movie, so there’s no telling whether it actually ever filmed). Don’t expect that Kristy will be the last of the former “pros”, as this is a topic that MTV covered, since there are several people supposed to make the final 50 who have quite impressive resumes. I hope Kristy Lee doesn’t suffer too much backlash because I really did like her.

Beth Stalker has a professional career—as a restaurant and lounge singer (you know, Simon’s favorite kind of singer). At 28, this is her last year of eligibility. Her “Bewitched, Bewildered and Bothered” was one of my favorite performances of the night, but Simon may be right— she may fade into the background.

Chris Watson was up next. He sang “Follow Me”. It was a decent performance. He has a good look. But he was just so-so for me.

And the final performer of the night was Brooke White, a nanny who’s never seen an R-rated movie. She seemed like a very sweet girl, and her performance of “Like a Star” showed that she’s an emotional singer with a decent voice. Will she make it through Hollywood? Who knows.

In all, 29 performers from Philadelphia made it through to Hollywood. So, there were clearly a lot of performers we didn’t get a look at. Maybe the winner of Season 7 of American Idol was among them.

Tonight is the 2 hour premier for American Idol Season 7. Tonight takes to the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia) for auditions. Two hours of Philadelphia (or any other city, for that matter) seems like a lot— not that I won’t be watching.

And if you don’t get enough of the good, the bad and the ugly tonight, tomorrow night brings us two more hours. This time they’ll be showing the auditions from Dallas.

And if you miss both nights but want to know who made it through and who you should be watching for, just check back here. If you can’t stand the early rounds, it’s okay. I’ll be watching and reporting on who was hot (I try to avoid the “who’s not” as much as possible).