American Idol 7: Why David Hernandez Lost

Let me state something from the outset of this article: David Hernandez was not the worst singer this week. That dishonor obviously belonged to Kristy Lee Cook – I mean, even Paula couldn’t say anything nice about her! But if we could simply point to the worst performance and send them packing, this wouldn’t be American Idol, and we wouldn’t need this column. Since it is and we do, let’s see if we can figure out why David Hernandez lost.

With the semi-finals mercifully over, I only have to write about one contestant a week. Hallelujah! But we still tackle the issues in the same way – by looking at What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know and going through it step by step to figure out what happened.

We already addressed the issue that David was not the worst when it came to the first rule, singing and performing well. But that doesn’t mean he was good. Indeed, the judges universally panned him – Randy said the performance was overdone, Paula agreed, and Simon called it “corny verging on desperate.” Recapper Betsy added that he “comes across as hesitant and tepid.” She added, “He absolutely fails to hit the high notes or to even show a sense of fun with the song.”

And they weren’t alone. The We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel gave him thumbs-down all around. Sandy was probably the most favorable in saying she was “just lukewarm” about it. Tyler called him stiff and said it was “a substandard Broadway vocal without a Broadway dance number.” Kathy called it “over the top.” Bruce agreed with much of what Randy said and added that “it was a bad performance.” And I noted that his voice “simply was not up to the task,” including when he “avoided the big high note and let the background singers do the work for him.”

Joseph, in his NGH Report, ranked David eighth but also called him “Not Safe.” Why? Because he agreed with the judges that David overdid it. “The Beatles’ work needs to be sung simply and with feeling. David deep fried a song that needed to be stewed.”

So even though David wasn’t generally thought to be the worst, he certainly was down there. Indeed, the We’ll Be the Judge of That! crew pretty much all picked him for the bottom three, as did recapper Betsy.

But as we’ve noted, singing and performing isn’t everything. What caused David to drop that extra spot and go home?

The second rule played a role. It emphasizes the importance of song choice. We’ve already hinted at how poor a decision he made to go with “I Saw Her Standing There.” He couldn’t hit the necessary notes, for one thing. For another, as Kathy said, his “tone and style wasn’t conducive to this song. He needed something more R&B, and this song is more “early rock and roll.” She added some very important advice: “I know it’s hard to for the contestants to choose when there are limitations placed on them, but they really need to know themselves well in these situations.” And Bruce added some words of wisdom that were very close to what Randy said: “He didn’t show any understanding of the song.”

But here’s the thing – Kristy Lee made a horrible, terrible song choice too. Or at least what she did to the poor song was horrible and terrible. So this factor wasn’t what pushed David below her.

Nor was the third, but that doesn’t mean David did well there either. That rule says to be consistent. Kristy Lee has been pretty consistently bad, but David has been up and down. One week not so great, another week pretty good. As the rule notes, “If you are ‘on’ one week and ‘off’ the next, viewers will tire of trying to guess which version of you they’ll see.” That certainly impacted David here.

And what about the fourth rule, which says to be unique? Well, to begin with, David was rather non-unique in his name – there were three Davids in the top 12! That’s 25% Davids! The thing is, each David was so different, I don’t believe this had much of an impact. Maybe a small one for people who were easily confused, but they would have probably dialed the wrong number anyway.

Other than his name, David didn’t really blend in with any of the other contestants. But I also have to say that he didn’t really stand out. Let’s think about the guys in terms of their Idol personas: David Archuleta is the cute one who until this week could do no wrong; David Cook is the rocker; Chikezie has a ton of personality; Michael Johns has the smoky look and is Australian; and David Hernandez is… um… the other one.

Of course, that’s not quite true. David became memorable, per the fifth rule, for a non-Idol reason that I’m sure he would have rather stayed hidden. I am, of course, talking about his former occupation as a stripper in a gay nightclub. It’s one thing to be memorable, but that’s not really what most contestants are shooting for.

Whether I personally like it or not – or you as a reader like it or not – the fact of the matter is that both the “stripper” and the “gay” part of this likely had an impact on some subset of voters. Considering there were viewers who were screaming bloody murder because Fantasia was a single mother (the horror!), can you imagine what they thought about David? I shudder to think about it. But I’m sure there were people who withheld their vote – and potentially voted for somebody else – because of David’s past occupation or his sexual preference.

And whether we agree with it or not, the fact is that this all became part of David’s overall package, as described by the sixth rule. He unfortunately did not show as much charm and personality as he might have, thus he didn’t endear himself to a large enough number of viewers right away.

David did fine with the seventh rule, which says not to argue with the judges. Indeed, I noticed just how respectful he was this week, making sure to say that he would take their comments into consideration and come back next week to do a better job. Alas, next week will not come for him.

The eighth rule links us back to what we were discussing in the sixth. It discusses the importance of a fan base, and I think we saw that right here. Kristy Lee came into the semi-finals with a fan base from her early audition appearance on the show. While I would have expected it to seriously erode after her string of terrible performances, perhaps I underestimated them. Or I overestimated David’s fans.

As we’ve seen before, a truly horrendous performance can actually spur fans to dial even more than a good one. So whatever fans Kristy Lee had left probably spent a full two hours trying to save her – and it worked. I just don’t think David had a fan base that was strong enough or dedicated enough to compete with that.

Despite all I’ve said here about Kristy Lee (which I hope to be expanding on next week in “Why Kristy Lee Lost”), the fact is that David really didn’t do himself any favors with his performance. There were certainly other factors, and the revelations about him didn’t help. But if he had just come through in his performance, none of that would have mattered. David needed to overcome his situation rather than succumbing to it.

But that didn’t happen. Rather than giving viewers a reason to vote for him, he gave them a reason to ignore him. He came in to this week with a number of us thinking he was in danger, and he made things even worse with a poor performance. That is why David Hernandez 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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