American Idol 7: Why Danny Lost

Just when we here at Foxes On Idol came up with the perfect nickname for Danny Noriega – “Danjaya” – he up and got himself voted out! The nerve of him. Actually, the nerve of Danny may have had something to do with him not advancing to the final 12. Where did his problems lie? Talent? Attitude? Age? A bad Christmas video? Why did Danny lose?

Danny seemed to have so much promise early on. But the more we saw of him, the more he seemed to drift near the bottom of the pack. We can examine what happened along the way, including especially the very end, by looking back at What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know. Let’s see what we can see.

First and foremost, contestants need to show singing and performing talent. The very fact that we here at Foxes On Idol decided to call him “Danjaya” should give you a hint as to what we considered his talent level as compared to the way he acted. But let’s go for something more solid than that.

Randy said Danny started off rough but got better. Paula talked about Danny in nice generalities without saying anything specific about this performance. Usually, that’s a sign that she didn’t like it but doesn’t want to say anything bad for fear of potentially hurting a contestant she likes. Simon, being the more honest type, called it terrible and hated everything about it. Recapper Betsy added her thoughts that he didn’t show off his voice and his facial expressions were “a little much.”

As for the other Foxes On Idol writers, the members of the We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel generally found it campy and not too great. Bruce said his voice sailed away from him a few times. Sandy didn’t like it at all, calling it, “very creepy and just downright weird.” Kathy said it was “horrid” and wanted him gone (she got her wish!). Tyler thought Danny avoided the high notes. Oddly, he also thought Danny could have “vamped it up just a little more,” while I thought it was already “TMTH” (too much to handle) and over the top. I did disagree with my fellows in saying that if you closed your eyes, the vocals could have been good.

Joseph, in his NGH Report, ranked Danny six out of eight – ahead only of fellow loser Luke and David Hernandez. Joseph actually said he loved Danny and knows he could sing, but didn’t think he picked a good song.

That leads us nicely to the second rule, which is all about song choice. To quote Joseph’s NGH Report, “I think it was beyond stupid to pick a ‘performer's’ song over a ‘singers’ song – again!” Indeed, this song did not allow Danny to truly show what he could do. Watching it back again, I don’t think I can even agree with my own previous statement that the vocals were pretty good – it’s really a who-can-tell situation because of the song he chose. This was a problem for him the whole way, starting with the Elvis tune he performed in the first week of the semi-finals.

This also exposed him to problems with the third rule, which speaks of the need to be consistent. It seems many people know Danny can sing well – but we haven’t seen enough of that. Even Joseph, who I noted above said he loved Danny, never ranked his performances in the top half of the group. That’s not a good sign.

But Danny did a good job in terms of the fourth rule, being unique. I can definitely say there was nobody else quite like Danny in the semi-finals (well, Ramiele had similar hair, but that aside…). His age, his attitude, his look – all were his alone on this show. When Danny walked out for his performance, nobody ever said, “Now who is this one again?”

That’s because he was memorable as well. We knew about him coming into the semi-finals, and we never forgot him. Even if we didn’t like his performance, we remembered what he sang and how he sang it.

But I’m afraid Danny was memorable for some of the wrong reasons, which we should discuss in terms of the sixth rule, being a complete package. The same attitude that made him unique also made him annoying – at least for many adults. I’m sure there are kids out there who found Danny a great in-your-face representative against oppressive adults. After all, when he was criticized, he brushed it off as if he didn’t care (we’ll get to that more in a moment). Don’t all teenagers want to do that at some point?

But there was more than that. The most successful contestants on Idol are generally charming in some way or another. They used their personalities in a positive way. I don’t know that there was much positive about Danny’s personality. He rolled his eyes sarcastically. He waved the judges off with a “whateverrr.” Etc.

And then there was that Christmas video. If you haven’t seen it, it’s on YouTube. I don’t know the exact circumstances when he made it, but basically there is Christmas music playing and then Danny says he hopes Santa comes and rapes people’s mothers and gives them coal. Not quite the usual Christmas spirit. I don’t think it had a huge effect on the voting, but I’m sure people who heard about it figured it coincided with a lot of the attitude they’d seen from Danny on the show already. And that wasn’t good.

I already hinted at what was coming in terms of the seventh rule, which warns contestants not to argue with the judges. But Danny obviously didn’t read that, as he treated the judges like they were nothing more than annoying flies on his shoulder. He even did the whole brush-off thing this week when Simon called him terrible.

It is amazing to me that some contestants still have not learned that acting like this is not the way to gain votes – at least not in the long run. And in some cases, not in the short run either. But Danny didn’t seem interested in learning anything, anyway. He’s at the perfect age and maturity level where he believes he knows everything and anybody who tells him otherwise is just wrong. Hopefully, this will be a learning experience for him.

The eighth rule encourages contestants to create a fan base. I think that’s what Danny was trying to do with his attitude – bring in the teens like himself who want to stick it to the man. But apparently there weren’t enough of them out there. Indeed, Recapper Betsy even noted she hadn’t yet received any e-mail from a single Danny fan. Perhaps they were all too busy in chat rooms typing things like “TMTH.”

Danny came in to the semi-finals all attitude and personality and ego. But he never really showed that he had the ability to go along with it. Ironically, many people thought Danny would make it to the finals on his personality. Instead, he fell by the wayside in part for that very reason. Danny was not terrible, but he wasn’t great either. And he certainly wasn’t as great as he seemed to think he was. Danny needed to at least show that his ego and attitude had some basis in reality, but in three weeks of trying, he never made it to that point. That is why Danny 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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