American Idol 7: Why Michael Lost

Nobody I know of predicted that Michael would go home this week. But that’s exactly what happened. Now we’re left to pick up the pieces and try to figure it out. Hey, that’s what we do here. So why did Michael lose?

Luckily, we have the tools at our disposal to find some answers. So join me as we walk through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know and find out what could possibly have happened to cause Michael to go home now.

The first and most important rule is to show singing and performing talent. I think Michael has been doing that lately, but what did others have to say?

After his performance on Tuesday, Randy pointed to pitch problems (which is about as helpful as Paula complimenting somebody’s shoes) and a poor song choice. Paula told him he sounded as good as he looked (not helpful). Simon said it was a good performance but he also agreed with Randy in saying it appeared to be an impersonation of a rock star. In other words, Simon pointed to karaoke without saying the dreaded word. Indeed, the karaoke part of this first rule specifically uses the term “impersonation.”

Recapper Betsy thought he was quite good, but the opinions of the We’ll Be the Judge of That! panel varied. Sandy, Tyler, and I liked it (okay, I thought it was among his best performances); Bruce was fair to middling about it; Kathy called it “downright painful.”

Joseph ranked Michael second in his NGH Report, listing only Jason’s performance as having been better Tuesday night. He said Michael “rocked the house with a blazing rendition,” though he also admitted most viewers would think the falsetto at the end sounded weird. Because of this and the way the judges pigeonholed him as a soul singer, Joseph did note that Michael wasn’t safe.

So we had a mixed bag there. But one thing numerous people brought up was song choice. Sandy said, “I was worried by Michael’s song choice this week. I thought he had chosen a song that he liked again rather than one that was the best from a performance standpoint.” Tyler called it an “interesting song choice.” Kathy said, “The song choice was all wrong.”

Of course, we also know that Randy thought it was a bad song choice, and Simon preferred Michael singing R&B. After the results were announced, Simon was more forceful in saying it wasn’t the right song. So maybe Simon was right that he should have stuck to singing bluesy soulful songs.

But I think there was another potential problem with the song choice that didn’t really enter my mind Tuesday night, but others did mention. Kathy noted, “Aerosmith is not inspirational.” Bruce added, “this was by no means ever meant to be an inspirational song.” While I like Aerosmith, I do now have to consider that perhaps people tuning in to hear “inspirational” songs might not have felt Aerosmith was really what they were expecting, and they might not have been fans of that particular type of music.

The third rule talks about the importance of consistency. In the past few weeks, Michael has been doing well. However, it took him a few weeks to get going. Early on, he was not so consistent. That was valuable time used up while others were gathering a fan base.

Fourth is to be unique. I think Michael was so-so in this regard. On the plus side, while I originally thought being Australian might hurt him, I don’t think that really played a role. However, it did help him to stand out. His looks didn’t hurt in that regard either.

But there was another side to this issue. Michael eventually became a rocker on the show. Whether it was bluesy rock or what have you, he drifted into that area. The problem is that this season already has a rocker – and a well-defined one at that – in David Cook.

We’ve talked about vote-splitting before. While for some reason it usually seems to affect the women, we also saw it impact Constantine when Bo took some of his votes. The same thing has happened here. David Cook has been a rising star throughout this competition, and he is most definitely seen as a real rocker. Michael just doesn’t seem as “real” in that regard (though by no means did he seem as fake as Constantine did to me).

While some people liked Michael’s performance and others didn’t, just about everybody panned David Cook. So that means his fans – the rocker fans – knew they needed to support him and send votes his way. They likely did so at the expense of supporting Michael as well.

Moving to the fifth rule, was Michael memorable enough? Under normal circumstances, I would have said yes. However, Michael was the first singer this week, meaning he had to be even more memorable than usual. I’m not sure he pulled that off.