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.
