American Idol 9: Why Aaron Lost

Aaron Kelly should be happy with where he ended up on American Idol. Frankly, in my opinion, he went on longer than his current talent level justified. On the other hand, he wasn’t a joke like some contestants we’ve seen, so it wasn’t too bad. The questions we need to answer involve how he lasted as long as he did – and why his luck ran out. Why did Aaron lose?

How do we resolve those questions? The same way we have all season, of course – by looking through the pages of What ‘American Idol 9’ Contestants Need to Know to see where the rules encapsulated there might lead us. Let’s get to it!

The first and most important rule is to sing and perform well. How did Aaron do in that regard in his final appearance? The on-site judges generally liked him, though they also thought he didn’t do as well as he had done the week prior – when most people thought he had done quite well.

As for the Foxes On Idol folks, recapper Jenn was bored. The NGH Report’s Joseph ranked Aaron second-lowest of the night and called him an “also ran” whose performance “wasn’t up to par.”

Oddly, the We’ll Be the Judge of That! crew all agreed about Aaron – and all of us liked him! Tyler thought Aaron “sounded very good.” Preston had a few quibbles but called it “one of Aaron’s stronger overall performances.” And I thought he did surprisingly well, identifying it as perhaps the performance of his that I liked most out of his whole time on the show.

Moving to the second rule, song choice was not an issue. There was nary a complaint about it and, let’s face it, he was somewhat limited in his options anyway. Not an issue here.

So if his loss was not due to that particular performance, what about the third rule’s identification of the need to be consistent. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.

As I already noted, his last performance was also my favorite. I know that I’m not necessarily representative of your average Idol viewer, but it still should not take this many weeks to get a thumbs-up from me! And even others didn’t give him much in the way of praise until the prior week, which the judges classified as his break-out performance.

The fact is that Aaron was not at all consistent. He was dragging along for several weeks – thus the reason many people (myself included) thought he should have gone home sooner. But then when he gave us two decent-to-good performances in a row, he was sent packing! What was up with that?

Consistency needs to occur over more than just two weeks. Indeed, if a contestant has been inconsistent throughout much of the competition and then manages to have a really good night, the following week is a dangerous one for them. Perhaps up to this point, the fan base (which we’ll get to in a bit) had been carrying him. But then that big performance could draw out more voters. However, the second performance, if it’s not as great but still good, can sometimes lead to the fans not trying so hard. After all, he doesn’t need it, right? He had two good weeks in a row!

That may be the case, but the overall viewer votes won’t necessarily line up that way when you’re talking about those who are voting based on what they saw most recently. To make things even worse for Aaron, he was the first contestant of the night. Even I noted that while I initially thought he did a great job, he ended up being overshadowed by later performers.

That is where the fourth and fifth rules of being unique and memorable come into play. In this particular season, Aaron was certainly unique due to his age and image. However, we’ve seen young Aaron-like contestants before (compare this to, say, Crystal or Big Mike, who stand out on their own among all the seasons). In the world of music, Aaron was certainly not unique.

Nor, unfortunately, was he terribly memorable. As I mentioned earlier, recapper Jenn was still bored by him, even this far into the competition. She was not alone. And boring tends to equate to forgettable when it comes time for voting.

Even if you disagree with Jenn’s assessment, Aaron still needed to really pack a punch, going in the first spot. As I mentioned above, he didn’t really do that. He did well, but by the end of the night he was not among those being talked about in glowing terms by viewers.

I would say that Aaron did a good job in following the sixth rule, which deals with packaging himself and his personality. He knew where his bread was buttered and played up to the young voters and the grandmas (though I’m sure he had fans in between as well). One good example was the way he changed the lyrics in a recent performance so they were somewhat “cleaner” than the original song. I’m sure this earned him kudos from those who want to see more innocence in a boy his age. Aaron definitely sold himself well in that regard.

In keeping with that image, Aaron had no problems with the seventh rule, which tells contestants not to argue with the judges. Aaron was a sweet young boy, so of course he would not smart mouth the judges, right? No issue here.

And he was rewarded for all of this with the eighth rule, which talks about creating a fan base. As noted earlier, he appealed most strongly to the young and the grandmas – and they kept him around for longer than his talent on its own should have warranted. That’s what a fan base can do! You can perform below the level of the others around you, but your fans can keep dialing and texting and getting you out of jams.

Eventually, though, it was destined to end. Aaron was not going to be the next American Idol. He made it a long distance and he ended on a fairly high note, which is good for him. We might even see and hear him again in the future. But Aaron’s fans eventually had to drop the ball – or get outnumbered by the fans of other contestants.

It is not a coincidence that Aaron lost after a performance that many viewed as great followed by one that many thought was good. “Good” but not particularly memorable doesn’t grab the unaffiliated viewer votes. But “good” can have the effect of not spurring your own fans into super-dialing to save you.

Aaron needed to follow what some called his breakout performance with another one that was just as good. He needed to make it memorable enough to grab not only his own fans but other viewers as well. He did well for himself but couldn’t hit that level. That is why Aaron lost.

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