American Idol 6: Why Jared Lost

There were several surprises on Thursday night’s results show, but Jared’s elimination was not one of them. He was never one of the stars of the show, though he had done okay from time to time. Obviously, “okay” is not good enough, but why did Jared lose?

We’ve already dealt with the two more controversial vote results, Antonella and Sundance. So it’s time to give the same treatment to Jared, whose loss was not exactly a surprise. Indeed, he was the only prediction I got right in my pre-show article with Sting7! We’ll still handle him the same way as always, though – by looking back at What ‘American Idol 6’ Contestants Need to Know to see what went wrong for Jared.

The primary rule for American Idol contestants to remember is that they need to sing and perform well. Let’s take a look at how Jared did on this front.

Randy thought it was a “solid performance.” Paula was actually more critical than Randy, saying Jared needs to try “coloring up the way you sing.” And Simon agreed, noting that the performance was not very original and could get lost in the mix – he just didn’t get the “wow factor” from it.

Recapper Betsy liked it more than the on-site judges, saying “he really pulled it off.” Meanwhile, the Foxes On Idol panel at We’ll Be the Judge of That! had some differing opinions, though we mostly categorized it as middle of the road. While Kathy thought Jared deserved the most improved vocals award, she also said he needed to work on his performance skills. Sandy agreed on both fronts. Tyler called his vocals and performance “mediocre,” Bruce went with “utterly average,” and I said it screamed “generic.” Three different ways of describing the same thing.

And really, that described Jared throughout his time on the show. Let’s jump ahead to the fourth rule because it is appropriate here. Jared never really stood out and showed himself to be unique. He has a decent voice. He is a good-looking guy. He gave okay performances. But he never made viewers pay attention to him. There was nothing about his personality or his performances that made a large number of viewers sit up and say, “Jared is clearly the best, and we should all rush to the phone to vote for him.”

As we continue to skip around a bit, let’s look at the third rule, which emphasizes consistency. What did we say already? He was average. He gave okay performances. Those statements came not just from one performance, but from all three. When I said he never stood out, I meant it – he had three chances to wow us, but it just never came through. So he was consistent – just consistently average.

Going back to the second rule, did his song choice do him in? Well, it likely played a role. He chose a well-known song and didn’t really do it justice. Frankly, it’s hard to do any Stevie Wonder song justice, so that was problem number one. But this one in particular needed a lot more oomph from him, as well as some more vocal gymnastics than he showed he was capable of doing – thus Paula’s comment about coloring up his singing.

Moving back to the usual order, we encounter the fifth rule. This reminds contestants that they need to be memorable. Unfortunately, just as Jared wasn’t unique, he also wasn’t as memorable. Phil Kural hit the nail on the head in his Idol Sound-Off column when he said, “Jared consistently fell right in the middle of the pack, and that’s probably the main reason he fell short of making the top 12, because when it came to the votes, he was forgotten.” On Idol, it’s often better to be hated than to be ignored. If you’re hated by some, odds are good that there is another group who will defend and vote for you. For example, we have Sanjaya. But if people don’t have any emotional attachment to you and you’re just sort of there, well, then you won’t be there much longer. That was the problem for Jared.

The sixth rule tells players they need to take personality into account and be a complete package. Even after watching him for three weeks, I’m not entirely sure Jared has a personality. He didn’t show us anything. It was an empty package.

Since he was missing that key, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t break the seventh rule, which says not to argue with the judges. After all, arguing would have shown the existence of a personality. And we’ve already been through that.

The final rule tells contestants to create a fan base. Jared didn’t really appear in the early episodes, so he was not able to use that time to work up some fans. However, the same is true of several other people who made it through to the top 12, so we can’t blame that. Jared sang well enough to move past the first two semi-final rounds. But as the herd was thinned, his number had to come up. As noted above, being in the middle of the pack all the time won’t grab fans for a singer. So viewers started picking their favorites, and Jared was not able to latch onto them.

In the end, Jared seemed to be a nice guy with a nice voice. But that’s about the only description that could be used for him: Nice. Well, other descriptions would have included “average,” “mediocre,” and “generic.” He wasn’t bad. But he wasn’t very good either. Jared simply faded into the background, forgotten. He was remembered by fans only when Ryan Seacrest called him forward to send him home. That is why Jared lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent 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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