American Idol 7: Why Alexandrea Lost

Coming into the semi-finals, Alexandrea had minor screen time and needed to make a big impression to stick around. She made it past the first week but not the second. Considering the way her performance was ranked as compared to, say, Kady’s, this seems like something of a surprise. But was it really? Why did Alexandera lose?

Out of the four losses, Jason Yeager’s was not a surprise, Alaina’s was a bigger surprise, Robbie’s was more of a surprise still. Where does Alexandrea’s fall? That depends on who you ask. But answering the question of why is exactly what this column is all about, especially when it seems a performance didn’t warrant being voted out. So let’s look at What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know to see what we can figure out.

As I’ve already mentioned, compared to others (yes, I’m especially talking about Kady Malloy) Alexandrea had a better performance and should not have gone home. And indeed, singing and performing well is the primary rule for those who want to win Idol. However, I don’t want to be misunderstood here – I’m not saying Alexandrea did the best, just that she did significantly better than some of the others. When I was commenting on the performances for We’ll Be the Judge of That!, I thought Alexandrea did well, though I hated her outfit.

The view of what she was wearing was pretty unanimous, but opinions on her performance certainly were not. Among the other judges on the panel, Sandy didn’t like what she heard – or saw, including “strange facial expressions”; Bruce agreed with Sandy. Kathy was more on my side. In his NGH Report, also here at Foxes On Idol, Joseph was on the Sandy/Bruce side, ranking her only above Kady and saying he didn’t know what Alexandrea brought to the competition. While he felt she had potential, she was boring.

The on-site judges seemed to not be thrilled with the performance, but didn’t want to slam her either. Randy called it a “safe” performance and called on her to challenge herself (sorry, too late). Paula emphasized how much Alexandrea should be in the competition (as if to encourage voters). Simon said she was struggling, out of tune, inconsistent, and boring. Recapper Jenn said Alexandrea had a good voice, but not good enough for Idol.

So we really don’t have a good consensus. Some thought it was fairly good, some that it was really bad. With that, let’s move on to the second rule, which emphasizes the importance of song choice.

This one is tough here. A woman singing a Chicago song did sound a bit odd, I have to admit. But that wasn’t really the problem. While Alexandrea believed the song was right for her, Simon thought quite the opposite. He noted that it is “stuck in its time period” and wasn’t a whole lot she could have done with it. I do agree somewhat and don’t think it was the best song choice she could have made. In the first week, she took a ‘60s song and made it sound current. But in the second week, she left the song in the ‘70s.

This brings us nicely to the third rule, which tells contestants they need to be consistent. We didn’t get to see a whole lot of Alexandrea early on, but Simon did, of course. After her second semi-final performance, he talked about how he liked her in the earlier auditions but she was struggling on the semi-final stage. Right there we see an indication of a lack of consistency.

But it goes beyond that to the semi-final performances themselves. In the first week, Alexandrea was widely considered to have done well. As she mentioned to Ryan Seacrest after her second performance, she knew of the importance of being consistent (maybe she’s read my columns). And Tyler, in his Idol Ideals column put Alexandrea in the same category as Alaina, indicating that she proved her talent in the first week and needed to follow up with something at least as good. As he noted, “Even the slightest slip from last week’s work could prove fatal.” Bingo.

The fourth rule tells contestants they need to be unique and stand out from the others. As already mentioned, Joseph of The NGH Report didn’t see what she brought to the competition. Similarly, recapper Jenn didn’t believe Alexandrea stood out from the field.

Also, just as the blondes are battling to be recognized (as we discussed with Alaina), I think Alexandrea was also fighting to stand out. It was a fight she obviously didn’t win.

Part of the reason can be found in the fifth rule, which lets singers know they need to be memorable. They can do this in one of two ways – with a good story or a good performance. We’ve seen that some people thought Alexandrea did well, but by no means everybody. Indeed, recaper Jenn specifically said it was “nothing really memorable.” In addition, what do we remember about her outside of performing? Personally, not much. I think she was the one with the grandmother supporting her. Beyond that… nothing. Say what you will about Kristy Lee Cook and her horse stories, but we will have a hard time getting that out of our memories!

I think Alexandrea may have been shooting for memorable by following the sixth rule, which notes that contestants are a package. I simply cannot believe that she dressed herself the way she did by accident. She did stand out for it, I’ll give her that. But it was terrible. That is not the best way to go about attempting to follow this rule, though. She would have been better off somehow getting more of her personality across, especially at this stage of the competition.

The seventh rule was not an issue. Alexandrea didn’t argue with the judges – indeed, she specifically said she wanted to take what they said and make herself better the next time around. Alas, there will be no next time around for her.

As I said for Alaina, Alexandrea was unable to pull together a fan base in accordance with the eighth rule. We can certainly say that some of this isn’t her fault, as she has no control over how much she appeared in early episodes. 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.

Even those who panned Alexandrea’s performance still thought she did better than Kady, who stuck around. But Kady made an impression on everybody earlier and then continued to do so in her video spots. So Simon made fun of her Britney impersonation – who cares? That means people are remembering her for some reason. Unfortunately, the same could not really be said of Alexandrea. She needed to step up with a big second performance, but many people felt she failed. Even those who liked what she did mostly said it still wasn’t as good as the previous week.

So she didn’t show enough consistency, and even worse, didn’t show enough about herself. Without either of those things, she didn’t give viewers a good reason to vote for her. That is why Alexandrea 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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