American Idol 7: Why Jason Yeager Lost

Jason Yeager was the one prediction I got right this week. Indeed, I thought he was lucky to make it through the first week. But why was Jason’s goodbye so expected? What put him into that position? Why did Jason lose?

While Robbie’s loss was a bit surprising – though certainly understandable – Jason Yeager’s was both understandable and expected. To fully explain why, let’s page through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know.

Jason’s main problem can be found in the very first rule, which says contestants need to exhibit some singing and performing talent. Let’s look at what people thought of his performance this week.

Randy called it pitchy and karaoke, while Simon leveled Jason by saying it was “awkward and ordinary” with a “horrific” ending that sounded like he was “drunk at a party.” Yikes! Recapper Betsy added that he was bland and his performance seemed “very theatrical and contrived. In fact, if he were a girl, we’d call it pageant-y. His performance was all big smiles and huge arm gestures.”

The We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel pretty much agreed. Sandy agreed with Simon about the ending and said overall is “was just not such a great performance. Tyler “didn’t hear anything new or exciting.” Kathy pointed to his tendency to go flat. In the NGH Report, Joseph ranked Jason ninth out of the ten and said he “doesn’t bring anything to the table.”

One thing that almost everybody pointed out, in addition to criticizing the performance, was that this was a poor song choice. Randy said it wasn’t a singer’s song and even Paula pointed out that a singer couldn’t show vocal range on it. Jason responded to the criticism by saying he thought he picked well. But no, he didn’t.

Indeed, Sandy, Tyler, and Bruce pointed out that Jason said he was waiting to find the perfect song on which to play an instrument. The problem is kind of like when Survivor: China’s James was waiting to use an immunity idol – he was gone before he could do it! Jason needed to realize what kind of danger he was already in and break out the big guns right away, not wait.

That leads us nicely into a part of the third rule that says each contestant needs to “treat every performance on Idol as if it could be your last” and to “Be excellent every time.” Jason obviously wasn’t.

But it went beyond that, as we look at the rest of the third rule and examine whether or not he was consistent. Frankly, if anything, Jason was better this week than last. He was almost unanimously described as boring last week, and he was at least a bit animated this week. Unfortunately, he still didn’t do anything to make himself stand out in a good way.

Indeed, that’s the goal of the fourth rule, which tells contestants they need to be unique. Jason… well, he didn’t even have a unique name in this season! There was the Jason with the dreads who played guitar and then… that other Jason. You know, the boring one. Not a great way to stand out.

For that matter, Jason did nothing to be memorable. In our pre-show prediction article, Sting joked of the need for Jason to “pull another dead grandparent, a cute kid, and maybe a few cuddly white bunnies out of his hat” in order to stick around. The fact is that he needed something to make people remember him. That’s another reason it would have been so good for him to whip out a musical instrument in his performance.

All of this flows towards the sixth rule, which reminds contestants that they need to be a complete package. But we got nothing from Jason. We didn’t see much personality; we didn’t see much performing ability. Sometimes a contestant can make it through a few weeks based solely on one or the other. But you can’t make it anywhere with neither.

Robbie didn’t do too poorly with the seventh rule, which says not to argue with the judges. However, he did come off a bit as acting like he knew better than they did when it came to song choice. Really, though, that’s not what got him sent home.

Finally, the eighth rule speaks to the need to create a fan base. But to get a fan base, people need to know you are actually in the competition! As we’ve already seen, that was not the case for Jason.

I think the only reason Jason even made it past the first round was because Garrett was there to receive even fewer votes than he did. Without Garrett as his safety net this week, Jason was left at the bottom of the pack. Mind you, it was mostly his own fault. He failed to take an opportunity to stand out by playing an instrument; he chose a song that didn’t allow him to stand out with his vocals; and he performed somewhat ridiculously. He went from boring to utterly forgettable – and forgotten. That is why Jason Yeager 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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