American Idol 4: Why Anthony Lost

Anthony definitely had his ups and downs during his time on American Idol. Sometimes he didn’t even seem worthy to share the stage with the other contestants; sometimes he blew them completely away. This week he was closer to blowing them away, yet he was the one sent packing. What happened? Why did Anthony lose?

The answers, my friends, are not blowing in the wind. Instead, they are located within What ‘American Idol 4’ Contestants Need to Know, and we just need to dig them out. Let’s take a look.

The first rule, of course, is to have some singing and performing talent. When he pulled out all the stops, Anthony definitely had these. He deserved to be in the final four, as he showed this week. However, was he better than the other three? That’s more difficult to say, and we’ll address it a bit more in the third rule. In my opinion, he is not as good a singer or performer as Bo. He was better than both Carrie and Vonzell this week, but not necessarily overall. It’s a toss-up.

So that means we need to look at the other contributing factors. For example, the second rule talks about song choice. This week, I thought Anthony did a great job picking songs that really fit into the niche he’s developed and allowed him to best showcase his abilities. Last week, though, not so much. In fact, his performance of “Poison Ivy” was the worst one we’ve seen out of anybody in a few weeks. He thought he would have fun with it, but we only need to look back to Nadia to see that what the singer thinks would be fun is not necessarily what the audience thinks would be fun.

The third rule brings us back to the topic we have already touched upon – consistency. Anthony didn’t have it. One week he was great, the next he seemed like a completely different person who just couldn’t hit the notes. Anthony did well this week, but he had a poor week previously. In this regard, he was very similar to Scott, but just a week behind. In fact, I’ll just steal the rest of this paragraph from Why Scott Lost:

The rule notes, “If you are ‘on’ one week and ‘off’ the next, viewers will tire of trying to guess which version of you they’ll see. Sure, your hardcore fans may drag you through the downtimes, but that won’t be enough to make it all the way.” In retrospect, it sounds like I was writing this specifically about [Anthony]! His fan base pulled him through the tough weeks, but they weren’t able to support him after a great one!

The fifth rule definitely helped him, though. We knew right away about Anthony’s surgery as a child. We knew that doctors thought he might never talk – and here he was singing! Anthony overcame the odds and that caused people to gravitate to him as the underdog. Plus, he just seemed to be such a nice guy! How could you not like him? Whether he did or did not remind some people of Clay, Anthony became memorable in his own right.

The sixth rule, advising against karaoke performances, didn’t come into play. Nor did the seventh, about arguing with the judges.

So that brings us to eight, reminding contestants that they are a package. Anthony seemed to understand this – witness the way his look changed over time. If Idol were only about singing, he wouldn’t have gotten rid of the glasses and gone through a bit of a makeover. But it isn’t, and everybody should know that by now. Anthony moved with the times, showed his softer side with some of his song choices, and made fans want to support him.

This, of course, brings us to the final rule of creating a fan base. Obviously, to make it this far, Anthony had a fan base. As I noted earlier, it’s unclear just what Clay fans thought of Anthony. Reports from the message board trenches seem to indicate that, as a whole, Clay Nation did not support Anthony. Of course, there is no such thing as a completely unified front in these matters, and so there were definitely some people who are fans of Clay and who also supported Anthony. But it did not seem that Clay Nation just suddenly became Anthony Nation. If he could have pulled that off, Anthony would almost certainly have been in the Final Two!

Still, Anthony did a fine job of getting his own fans. He had some rough weeks early on, and his fan base managed to pull him through no matter how sure some of us were that he would be going. But as mentioned earlier, they could only pull so far in the face of his competition.

Anthony showed us that he has a voice made for singing. But he didn’t really kick it into gear until late in the competition, and he also showed that he was not as consistent as some of the other contestants. Last week, his fans were able to pull him through a weak time. But when he was stronger, the fans may have relaxed, as so often happens.

Anthony Fedorov definitely has a career in music ahead of him. However, he needs to pick his songs wisely and get some advice on when to have some fun and when that fun doesn’t come off sounding so great. He was inconsistent and took a longer while to mature as a singer on Idol than the other singers, and as such he just didn’t develop quite the fan base. That is why Anthony lost.

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

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