American Idol 7: Why Alaina Lost

Coming into the first week, Alaina seemed certain to go home, as she had been essentially missing from pre-semi-final TV time. Then she did a good job and the pendulum swung such that it seemed likely she would stay. Instead, she left! What happened? How did the pendulum swing again? Why did Alaina lose?

While Jason Yeager’s loss was not a surprise, Robbie’s loss was. I would say Alaina’s falls somewhere in between. I thought her first performance was good enough to carry her, even if she faltered in the second week. I was wrong! So let’s find out why by going through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know to see what happened.

Most people thought Alaina did a great job in the first semi-final week. But was that the case again in the second week? Randy called her pitchy (I know, what a shock) and said she didn’t quite do it right. Paula thought she did a good job, which is her way of saying it wasn’t that great. And Simon thought she should have done something to make herself look a bit more relevant and current. Recapper Jenn didn’t think it was as good as the first week and worried it might be her final performance – and she was right.

Meanwhile, the other columnists here at Foxes On Idol had their thoughts as well. The We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel Sandy didn’t think Alaina did a very good job and indicated she “could lose the blonde lottery this week.” Kathy thought the performance was just average. I thought she showed some power in her voice but was not as sure of her safety as I was before she sang. In the NGH Report, the initials “NGH” stand for “Never Going Home,” which of course is the ranking all contestants should be shooting for. This time, Joseph labeled Alaina with that term and ranked her fourth out of the ten women! Unfortunately for her, it didn’t hold true.

The second rule talks about song choice. We’ve already seen that this subject played a role in Robbie’s loss and was a major cause of Jason’s. What about Alaina? Well, I think it did cause some problems, but probably not to the extent of the other two. That song was not the most thrilling of the night, and I don’t know that it really showed off Alaina’s vocals the way her song the previous week did. And as Simon said, she did need to be more current – though that covered everything from the song to the blue dress.

However, she really was done in by the third rule, which discusses the need for consistency. As we’ve already discussed, Alaina did great in the first week. But in the second week… not quite so much. Indeed, in my pre-show prediction article with Sting7, I noted that Alaina would need to perform extraordinarily well for a second week running to keep moving forward. Tyler, in his Idol Ideals column said something similar, noting that Alaina proved her talent but needed “to follow it up with something just as good, but preferably a little better to let the fans know what could be in store.” He added, “Even the slightest slip from last week’s work could prove fatal.” Indeed.

Another area where Alaina failed was in the fourth rule, being unique. There were four women out of the ten remaining with long, blonde hair. Indeed, some people started talking about them as “the interchangeable blondes.” I already noted above that Sandy referred to Alaina as the possible loser of “the blonde lottery.” This obviously didn’t help Alaina!

What could she have done? Something – anything – to make herself stand out more. She could have even worn her hair differently than the others and that might have helped at least somewhat. And no, telling us that you don’t want your foods touching each other is not enough to do it. How dull was that? Compare that with Kady, who had a unanimously bad performance but is still here. Why? In large part probably because people actually saw Kady’s individuality, from her impressions to her opera singing. Alaina was relying completely on her singing, which didn’t work out so well this week.

As such, it was a chore for people to remember Alaina, as she failed in the fifth rule. We didn’t hear about any background story or interesting tidbit about her life. Frankly, there was nothing about her to remember other than her singing. It was good the first week, so that worked out for her. But then the second week came…

This all plays into the sixth rule. Alaina didn’t turn herself into a complete package. Looking at just the other three blondes, we know a heck of a lot more about each of them than we do about Alaina. We know their history, their hobbies, and their personalities. For Alaina, we know… about her food pickiness. Yawn.

Because of this – and her lack of previous screen time – Alaina was unable to pull together a fan base in accordance with the eighth rule (yes, I skipped the seventh, because it didn’t come into play here). We can certainly say that some of this isn’t her fault, as she has no control over whether or not she appeared in early episodes. That much is true, but she also knew that coming in and had to do something to overcome it. She did the first week, but couldn’t follow up the second.

That is the key point here. Alaina performed well enough that I think if we had learned more about her earlier, she likely would have stayed. But she wasn’t. So her performances needed to be that much better; her mini-interviews before performances needed to be that much more interesting. She succeeded with performing well the first week, but fell off somewhat this time around. And she failed to make good use of her video time. (Indeed, considering how uninteresting her spots were, maybe we have an explanation as to why she wasn’t featured earlier.)

Alaina needed to make herself stand out in the blonde crowd. She did it with her singing once, but couldn’t do it a second time a row. And she didn’t use any other method to step out of the “interchangeable blonde” group. That is why Alaina 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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