American Idol 6: Why Nicole Lost

Nicole is a voice major who supposedly had a great Hollywood week. But like Amy, she had very little exposure in the early rounds. But also similar to Amy, that doesn’t tell the whole story. So why did Nicole lose?

This marks the fourth column to discuss why people didn’t make it past the first week on American Idol 6. Each week, we will discuss this (and believe me, I can’t wait until the semi-finals are over, so we’ll only need to talk about one singer!), and we’ll do so by looking back at What ‘American Idol 6’ Contestants Need to Know as a guideline. Let’s see what we can figure out about Nicole.

If you’ve read the first three columns of the season – or any from past seasons – you know that the first and most important rule is to have singing and performing talent. The “and performing” part is especially key for Nicole. While we didn’t see it, everything I’ve heard about the college voice program she’s in indicates she’s no slouch when it comes to singing. We were also told she had one of the best group performances in Hollywood.

But we didn’t see any of this come through in Nicole’s performance. The on-site judges mostly commented on her choice of song (we’ll get to that in a minute), though Simon said it looked unnatural and over-rehearsed. RealityNewsOnline recapper Jenn was similarly less than impressed, feeling it was off-key.

The Foxes On Idol panel at We’ll Be the Judge of That! had almost nothing good to say about it. Sandy felt the performance was bizarre; Bruce said her voice kept slipping around the notes; Tyler and I thought there was too much shouting going on; and Kathy provided the bluntest comment: “She sounded like a cat in heat.”

All in all, not a rousing success. But if she supposedly has such a good singing voice, what happened? The second rule happened, that’s what.

That rule notes, “Song choice is absolutely key.” Nicole is a perfect example of why this is so. Randy said this was not the type of song she should be doing. Paula said it was not the right song. Jenn said she “picked a song that doesn’t fit her voice.”

Simon pointed out where she went wrong with another aspect of this rule: “picking something the audience will enjoy, not one that you like.” Simon called her performance self-indulgent. Ironically, as Ryan Seacrest was trying to bait Nicole into arguing with Simon about this characterization, she essentially admitted he was right, saying she did it because she loves the song. Bad move!

Oddly, in post-show interviews, Nicole said she still thinks her song choice was a good one, though she admits picking a different song might have given her better voting results. Seeing as the votes are the whole reason she should have been there, this seems rather contradictory to me.

Moving on to the third rule, we see that contestants are advised to be consistent. Given what we already discussed – that she was among the best in Hollywood before giving us this way-off performance – it seems clear she was not consistent.

One thing she had going for her was that the song choice made her stand out and be unique, thus sort of following the fourth rule. The problem was that she stood out for all the wrong reasons.

Contributing to this problem was that she had barely registered with viewers before that performance. So the only thing they had to remember her by was that one performance, which appeared rather bizarre to most people. Personally, I remembered her as the voice major who couldn’t sing. Not exactly the way to bring in the votes!

That became a problem when it came to the sixth rule, creating a package out of herself. She had a good story that she could have used, what with the voice training and college and all that. But she blew it before that information could even get out there to help her.

At least she followed the seventh rule. Even while Ryan Seacrest was trying to goad her into a fight with Simon, she refused. Too bad we can’t vote Ryan off the show. But that’s another issue.

As we saw with Amy, Nicole didn’t really have a chance to follow the eighth rule, creating a fan base. Because of her lack of early screen exposure, she did not have a prefabricated fan population. That might not have mattered if she had performed in a way that the judges seemed to think she was capable of – others came in without a fan base and survived the week. Now they can start building those fans. Nicole missed her chance.

I really think that’s what it comes down to. While we didn’t really get to see it, all evidence points to Nicole having a good voice. She just never showed it to us! She picked a bad song for American Idol and dug herself a deep hole with her performance. When it’s the first round, viewers don’t know you, and you put that out there, you’re just not going to get enough votes to survive. That is why Nicole lost.

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

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

Be sure to sign up for the RealityNewsOnline/FoxesOnIdol e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on both sites! For all of our articles, check out our sections on American Idol, American Juniors, Nashville Star, and Canadian Idol. Also make sure to check out RealityNewsOnline for recaps and articles covering other reality TV shows.

For even more news about reality TV, be sure to check SirLinksALot: American Idol and Reality TV Fever!