American Idol 5: Why Stevie Lost

Stevie Scott came into American Idol with more vocal training than just about anybody else. Unfortunately, as we saw recently in the Olympics ice skating competitions, training doesn’t always translate to success. What happened to send Stevie home in the very first vote? Why did Stevie lose?

Although it was the first vote of the season, we will examine it in the same way as all the rest for this fifth season of American Idol, but looking at how she did in comparison to What ‘American Idol 5’ Contestants Need to Know. Let’s take a look.

The first rule is to have singing and performing talent. It seems obvious that Stevie does have talent – it’s not quite so obvious that her talent lies in this area as opposed to, say, opera. And when the time came for her to show that she had talent, she wasn’t able to do so.

Randy was almost put to sleep by her singing, while Simon thought she completely messed up and sang out of tune. RealityNewsOnline recapper Betsy summarized that it was “really not good.”

Meanwhile, over at Foxes On Idol, the “We’ll Be the Judge of That!” panel, the judges were similarly dismayed. Sandy called her “very flat,” Paris found her boring, Tyler thought it was the worst of the night, and I felt it was a combination – bad and boring. The voting public obviously agreed.

Of course, her choice of song contributed to these problems. Bruce, the sole Foxes On Idol judges who gave her positive comments, noted that she picked a “breathy and gentle vocal,” noting that “one of the most difficult things for an operatically trained singer to do is emote softly.” Even Paula said the song choice might not have been a “popular” one. Indeed, it wasn’t.

We’ll hop, skip, and jump past the third rule since it talks about being consistent and Stevie only had one performance.

The fourth rule tells contestants to be unique. Viewers who saw Stevie’s original audition likely remembered the operatic performance. However, after that she was lost in the background and didn’t really step forward again until Tuesday night when it came time to perform. While her opera training does make her unique, it was not enough to make her stand out. Unless we heard her, most viewers would not look at her and say, “Oh, Stevie, yeah, she’s the opera singer.”

Which, of course, had the effect of making her somewhat forgettable rather than memorable. And if you’re already not terribly memorable, singing a song that bores people is not the way to catch on! Stevie needed to do something to stand out and make viewers remember who she was – but she didn’t.

Stevie did fine in terms of the sixth rule, not arguing with the judges. But when we move to the seventh rule, we find that she should have packaged herself better. In addition to being forgettable and singing a dull song, Stevie’s personality did not shine through like the beacon it needed to be. This is not meant to be an insult, it simply brings us back to what I said earlier about her needing to stand out, but failing.

At this early stage, Stevie didn’t really have a chance to follow the eighth rule and create a fan base. As already noted, she fell into the background after her initial audition, and thus could not grab the necessary attention that could have translated into extra votes. Still, the way her audition went, she really shouldn’t have gotten such extra votes anyway.

A contestant in Stevie’s situation has two available options – find a way to use personality to get votes, or pull out an awesome performance to get votes. Stevie did neither. Most of the Foxes On Idol panel picked her to be one of the first two to go, and it looks like those feelings correlated well with the rest of America. Stevie may have great training, but she failed to put it into action. She needed to find a way to stand out by being outstanding, but instead she was boring and mediocre, at best. That is why Stevie lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent American Idol articles on Foxes On Idol and RealityNewsOnline:

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

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