American Idol 7: Why Kady Lost

I was so sure Kady Malloy would lose last week that I started writing this “Why Kady Lost” column before the results aired. After all, anybody and everybody had picked her to go home, so it seemed like a solid choice. So much for that. But I’m an environmental type of guy and believe in recycling, so we’ll see what I can re-use – after all, she only lasted one more week!

Kady had early audition TV time, a little bit of back story, and some talent. So what happened? Why did Kady lose?

If the losses of Asia’h (to be discussed later) and Danny were somewhat surprising, Kady’s and Luke’s were anything but. But to find out exactly why, we’ll go through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know step by step.

The first step, of course, is for the contestant to sing and perform well. Unfortunately for Kady, that’s where she hit her main problem. Even two weeks ago, in Tyler’s pre-show “Idol Ideals” advice article, he said Kady was in trouble and couldn’t “be afraid to go for broke. Actually, they should fear not going for broke.” I said something similar in my pre-show prediction article with Sting7, also two weeks ago, noting that Kady “was a bit boring” and needed “to step it up.”

Last week, Tyler and I continued in the same vein. Tyler said, “If Kady continues to perform as she has been, she might as well just quit now.” I noted, “I’m not sure she can rebound anymore. She may have managed to pull through last week, but it won’t happen again.” It took an extra week, but we were both right.

So what happened this week? In the words of recapper Jenn, “It’s awful.” The on-site judges actually thought it was a little better than awful, with Randy saying she did okay with it, Paula saying it was her best performance yet (not saying much), and Simon agreeing that it was better than last week.

The Foxes On Idol writers felt generally the same. Among the We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel, Sandy and Betsy thought the performance just wasn’t good, while Bruce and I agreed that it was her best to date – but again, that wasn’t saying much. Joseph felt similarly in his NGH Report, as he ranked her dead last while also saying it was her best performance, but…

Because we keep hearing that same sentiment, I’m going to skip the second rule for a moment and discuss the third, which talks of the need to be consistent. I suppose we could say that Kady has been consistent. But “consistently bad” is really not what she should have been shooting for. If you think the comments from judges this week were bad, let’s look at what people had to say in the second semi-final week.

Randy said she never hit the right notes; Paula didn’t like the softer notes and said she needed to define herself better as to who she is as an artist (remember that – it’ll be noteworthy later); Simon followed up on that topic, saying it seemed like she was always impersonating somebody on stage.

The Foxes On Idol columnists were not so nice. Among the We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel, Sandy thought it was “a big old mess”; Kathy had to cover her ears because of the key problems; Bruce similarly thought she was “flat throughout and downright unbearable in parts”; and I pointed out that Kady didn’t have the vocal strength necessary to pull the song off. Meanwhile, Joseph noted in his NGH Report ranked her last among the women and wondered, “Couldn’t she hear how awful it sounded during rehearsals?”

Needless to say, Kady was unable to follow the portion of this rule that says, “Be excellent every time.” Kady had three shots, and she was nowhere near excellent any of those times.

Returning to the second rule, let’s discuss song choice. This is especially appropriate to Kady because of what we’ve already talked about. She needed to do something to stand out in the second week, but she went about picking her song in the wrong way. Indeed, the quality of her singing was not the only thing we commented on at the time – so was her poor choice of song. Among the comments here on Foxes On Idol was my own, noting that she went wrong in a key part of this rule and pointing out, “She may have been having fun because she liked the song, but she needs to realize that the goal is not to make herself happy – it’s to make the audience happy.”

I’m not sure if that was the same problem with her song choice this week, but there certainly was a problem. Who knows – maybe she picked it because she just likes the movie Highlander. I mean, I could certainly understand that. But picking that particular song by that particular group was not particularly smart. It’s not among Queen’s most well-known songs, as noted by Sandy, Bruce, and myself. And it is not nearly as easy to sing as some people might think.