American Idol 7: Why Robbie Lost

Robbie was supposed to be the rocker – a role he never quite got to exhibit in a complete fashion. Simon kept slamming him on this point, but was it the reason for his leaving us? Why did Robbie lose?

The vote sending home Robbie was something of a surprise, I think. But that won’t stop us from examining the reasons for his loss. Indeed, it makes it that much more necessary. So to figure out what happened, it’s time to look at What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know and see where it leads us.

The most important factor, of course, is to have singing and performing talent. How did Robbie do in this area? Not as horrible as some of the contestants, but not exactly good, either. Randy wasn’t wowed, Paula thought he played it too safe, and Simon thought the vocal was just okay. Recapper Betsy thought his vocals were good, but he was “not sexy or dangerous enough” and “a little too wimpy to pull off the song.”

The panel on We’ll Be the Judge of That! was not exactly impressed. Sandy didn’t think it was good; Tyler thought it was dull and without punch; Kathy thought he played it too safe; Bruce felt it was weak; and it didn’t do anything at all for me. Robbie received two votes to go home out of the five judges. Meanwhile, Joseph said in his NGH Report that the performance was safe, boring, and karaoke – and ranked it eighth of the ten.

Song choice was not Robbie’s friend either, and thus he had problems with the second rule. Several Foxes On Idol writers mentioned that he chose a song that didn’t really fit his voice, thus necessitating dropping the key down to meet him. As Kathy wondered, “why wouldn’t he [choose] a rock song that’s a better fit for his range?” Indeed, Robbie himself blamed song choice for his loss when he discussed it on the Results show.

Robbie obviously wanted to go with a rock song to support his rock image. But, to be quite honest, he really wasn’t able to rock out even after choosing the song. When you are a rocker wannabe but can’t rock to a rock song, that’s a problem!

It also raised the issue of the third rule, which says contestants need to be consistent and able to sing in different genres. Frankly, Robbie didn’t prove he could sing well in his chosen genre, let alone others. And with this only being the second week, he didn’t have much opportunity to show consistency. But he did well the first week, at least in the views of most people around here. He couldn’t carry that through to the second week, though.

The fourth rule tells singers to be unique. I do think Robbie was fairly unique in his appearance and style as compared to the others this season. However, he wasn’t terribly unique as an overall rocker. Instead, he almost seemed to be the image of what he thought a rocker should look like.

What made things worse was that other contestants rocked better than he did! David Cook, for example, gave a better rock performance this week, which may have hurt Robbie.

I also think Robbie did fairly well in terms of the fifth rule, being memorable. There were only two guys with long hair, and the other had his in dreads – so he should have been pretty easy to remember. Unfortunately, though, Robbie was becoming memorable for a negative reason.

Which takes us to the sixth rule, reminding contestants that they are a complete package. It appears Robbie knew this to at least some extent, as it was recently revealed/alleged that his long rocker hair is actually a wig! But that news didn’t even have a chance to affect him because the rest of his complete package failed him.

While Simon and Randy were talking about Robbie not showing himself to be a true rocker, others were agreeing. Recapper Betsy went along with it – remember that she said he was too wimpy for the song. Joseph (NGH Report) noted that he failed to show himself to be a “true rocker” and was in danger because he didn’t have a good identity on the show. Sandy (We’ll Be the Judge of That!) wasn’t sure how well the whole rocker thing was working. Kathy (also WBTJ) knew Robbie was trying to reinvent himself as a rocker, but agreed that it wasn’t really working.

Indeed, on the Results show, while Robbie was blaming song choice, Simon was saying the viewers saw through Robbie’s façade. So in terms of this rule, he did not package himself well at all.

As for the seventh rule, which says not to argue with the judges, Robbie did mostly okay. He obviously wasn’t happy at Simon’s comments about him being a faux rocker, but didn’t go directly at them like, say, Chikezie.

The eighth rule informs of the importance of pulling together a fan base. We’ve seen before on Idol that there are definitely votes to be had in the rocker area. The problem is that Robbie was no Chris Daughtry or Bo Bice. I think the real rockers are standing with Amanda Overmyer. It seems that nobody was standing with Robbie.

Robbie sang fairly well the first week, but did not follow that up with a good performance this week. While he blamed poor song choice – and it certainly didn’t do him any favors – I think the main cause of his downfall was the whole fake-rocker thing. Most people can tell who the real rockers are and who is just playing one on TV. Robbie came off as the latter, and that hurt his chances. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that is why Robbie 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.

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