American Idol 4: Why Mikalah Lost

It came as a surprise to approximately nobody that Mikalah Gordon was sent packing from American Idol this past week. Even with a second chance to encourage her fans to vote, they still didn’t come out in enough numbers to keep her around. Although most of us knew it was coming, we still need to take a look at why Mikalah lost.

As always, we will arrive at our answer by looking back at What ‘American Idol 4’ Contestants Need to Know. We’ll look at what Mikalah did right, where she went wrong, and how in some cases she managed to do both.

The first rule, as always, is to have some singing and performing talent. Mikalah showed quite a bit of talent early on in the audition process, which helped carry her through the semi-finals. However, once she got there and into the finals, it seemed that each week she became less talented.

Mikalah obviously has an obnoxious Fran Drescher-like accent. Early on, that did not interfere with her singing. However, in later performances it seemed to become more pronounced and made her difficult to understand. Her lack of enunciation eventually earned her the nickname of “Marble Mouth Mikalah” from me. I simply could not understand half of what she was singing. While Idol involves many other factors, the ability to sing, not just to have a voice, is paramount – and Mikalah was unable to pull it together in most of her live performances.

The second rule also had an impact on Mikalah – picking the right song. For a while during the semi-finals, Randy insisted that it didn’t matter what song contestants picked, but that it was how they sang them that counted. However, the judges kept slamming Mikalah – rightfully so – for picking songs that were “too old” for her. In other words, ignore what Randy said and stick with what I have been saying: “Song choice is absolutely key.”

In fact, Mikalah is a case in point for this. She came to national attention by being that really excited and peppy girl. But she failed to show that side of her in most of her semi-final and final performances. Instead, she picked droopy ballads or Streisand or similar fare that simply was not of interest to the very audience that had been on her side.

Also, referring back to my comments about the first rule, Mikalah picked songs that really needed good enunciation. Her lack of ability in this area wouldn’t have been nearly so noticeable if she had, for example, picked a Bob Dylan song! OK, so that’s an extreme, but I’m only half-joking. She failed to recognize her weakness in this area and account for it in her song choice.

The third rule says to be consistent, and once again Mikalah failed. She was much better in the early auditions, from what we saw, than she was in the later live shows. Was it nerves? Was it the hectic Idol schedule? Or was it simply that although she put forth a much older image, she really is just a teenager and the whole competition was too much for her? There is no way to be sure, but I have a feeling that it was a combination of all three, with a good portion of the latter.

Fourth is to be unique – and in this Mikalah definitely succeeded. She did not remind us of any Idol contestant past, nor was she like any of her current competition. Mikalah stood out early as the extremely excited and peppy teenager. As the competition progressed, she lost that “uniqueness” and instead became unique in a negative way – the “Marble Mouth Mikalah” way I mentioned earlier.

By the same standpoint, Mikalah was also memorable early on. Her “Nanny” voice and brash attitude made certain nobody could forget her. Simon said early on that half of America would love her and half would hate her. Actually, that would have been fine – people can only vote for contestants, not against them. So half of America hating you is not a problem as long as the half that loves you does a lot of voting. That is why Mikalah stayed in as long as she did.

However, as each week passed, the old Mikalah faded from our memories and the new and definitely not improved Mikalah took her place.

The sixth rule says to avoid karaoke. I don’t think that was really Mikalah’s problem, since nothing she did was really an imitation, in any good or bad way.

However, one of her problems surfaced again in the seventh rule – the admonition to not argue with Simon or the other judges. Mikalah didn’t so much argue as she did smart mouth. In some cases, such as the “do-over” show, I think this was calculated to earn her votes from what she saw as her core fans. Indeed, she even wore a shirt saying it was her job to annoy us. Well, in that case, she did a great job! However, she miscalculated how far attitude like that would take her. Many of us who liked her early on were not snotty teenagers, nor did we want to see somebody act like one on TV. She needed to accept the judges’ criticism and learn from it.

One thing that Mikalah definitely knew was that, as the eighth rule says, she was a package. That means personality played a large role in how people viewed her. Unfortunately, as we’ve already addressed in several areas, this was not a package that many people would want as a gift. Maybe what we saw was the real Mikalah, but I think she was actively trying to engage a specific fan base with the way she acted. By picking that particular method of trying to get them on her side, though, she alienated many others.

What was that fan base? As I mentioned earlier, it seemed to be focused on teens around her age. However, she had a problem in that the personality she showed was the opposite of the songs she chose. If she wanted to court a teenaged fan base, she should have chosen songs that they would enjoy. If she wanted to court an older fan base, she should not have acted like a brat. Her attempts to gather a fan base just ended up with the worst of both worlds.

Mikalah’s main problem in the semi-finals and finals was that her singing ability simply did not hold up. But she might have been able to continue further in the same way she made it this far if she hadn’t sent such confused signals. Mikalah made it to the finals based on the fan base she had gathered early on. But as each week went on, she lost more and more of those fans by a combination of her poor performances, poor song choices, and poor attitude.

By her final week, just about everybody predicted Mikalah’s Idol demise. Her bad performances just kept adding up while her fan base kept dwindling down. That is why Mikalah lost.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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