Why Carmen Lost

If you read my recap of the results show, you already know that I fully expected this article to be about why Trenyce lost. In fact, I had plans to do a separate one about how Carmen kept making it through. But the Trenyce fans pulled through and, in the end, Carmen ended up at #6 out of 6. That means it's time to look back at What American Idol 2 Contestants Need to Know and see if we can determine exactly what it was that caused Carmen's final fall. As has been usual these days, some of what we find is contained within that article, while some falls outside its confines.

The first and, overall, most important rule is to have some singing talent. OK, we're hitting a bump in the road already. Carmen was not thought to be good enough to make it into the semi-final 32. It was not until the judges and/or producers decided to throw a twist into the show that we really even knew who she was. Carmen was brought back into the Wildcard show out of practically nowhere. Then she was picked by Simon as his choice. Why? Well, there were certainly plenty of conspiracies. But I think it's as simple as Simon having heard something in her voice that he felt could work.

Indeed, for the first few weeks it did work - if not for everybody then at least for Simon. Personally, I was interested as well in hearing more of her for the first few weeks. At some point, though, it all began to fall apart. Her singing couldn't keep up with the changes in genre. She had a bad time with "Call Me," but the voters still did, indeed, call her. It was even worse with Billy Joel's "And So It Goes." But she still didn't go. It seemed that "Love Will Lead You Back" might lead her back for another week - but it didn't. After three weeks of sub-par performances, and with it down to only six remaining contestants, she was voted off.

There is a reason that Clay and Ruben have never been in the bottom three. No matter what else goes on, they both have a hell of a lot of singing talent. Randy may have been rude about the way he said it this week, but the fact is that she did not deserve to be thought of as the best singer in America. Give her some time and some lessons, and I think she'll be back. I think Simon did indeed see something in her that could be molded, but not in the relatively short span that is covered by this competition.

Moving on, we have to look at song choice. Frankly, this is another area where Carmen just did not cut it in two of the last three weeks. Much was said about her choice of "Call Me," a bad-girl song that didn't really fit either her image or her style. Then she picked a fairly obscure Billy Joel song with "And So It Goes" - and did a bad job with it to boot. He has a huge library of songs that would have better suited her. I'm not sure what to make of her final choice - it certainly seemed better than her previous two, but that isn't saying much. Overall, with a run of bad song choices, combined with not exactly great singing, it's no mystery why she's gone.

But there are more than two rules to follow. So let's move to #3 - Be Different. Carmen succeeded here. She was the youngest and probably the cutest of the women. She refused to dress in a revealing style, which is indeed different from many popstars today. She did exactly what the article recommended: "Find a different way to stand out while still being yourself."

Much of the reason Carmen lasted to the final six is because of how well she followed this. It wasn't ability or song choice that put her ahead of Kimberly Caldwell or Rickey Smith. It was because she was different and that attracted voters who stood by her through thick and thin.

Unfortunately, she recently had problems in keeping to that image. She and Clay had been playing the whole "let's flirt sexily during group performances" thing. I'm sure this did not thrill many of her fans. Add to this her coy non-answer on Monday's "Halfway Home" special in response to a question about if she and Clay were an item, and you begin to have issues. Top it off with her having a "totally organic experience" in the embedded Herbal Essences ad on Tuesday night, and she managed to sully a bit of her innocent image. It may not seem like much, but if people are supporting you based on your purity, faking an orgasm - even if it's because of shampoo - is not a great way to keep them calling in.