American Idol 7: Why Brooke Lost

Many people thought Brooke should have been gone last week, after she had her second false start of the season. Instead, voters gave her a free pass for one more – and only one more – week. Ironically, she did better on one of the songs this week, but we should be used to that by now. Still, by most counts, she wasn’t the worst of the night. So why did Brooke lose?

I mentioned irony above, and I think we’re going to find more of it as we page through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know to figure out what Brooke did right and where she went wrong. Let’s have a look.

While it might often seem like Idol is little more than a popularity contest, it is still a contest based on singing. That means the first rule, which says to show singing and performing talent, continues to be the most important. And lately, Brooke just hasn’t been cutting it.

This week, her first performance was pretty much universally panned. Simon called it a “nightmare.” Randy said it was “karaoke.” recapper Betsy said it was not good and didn’t suit her – and compared her to a Muppet!

The We’ll Be the Judge of That! crew felt similarly. Sandy had problems with it, but might have given the most positive comment by saying parts of it were only “a bit off.” I thought it was her worst performance on the show ever. And Joseph, in his NGH Report, called it a mess.

Her second received better reviews, with Randy saying she did well, Paula adding that it showed who she is as an article, and Simon saying it was better than the first. Recapper Betsy noted that this is how Brooke is best.

Most of the Foxes On Idol columnists were more impressed as well. Sandy didn’t like this one either, and Kathy noted that while it was better, it still wasn’t as good as she had been earlier in the competition. The rest of us generally liked it.

But much of the damage had been done. While her song choice on the second number was good, as the second rule advises, her first was a disaster. As Recapper Betsy noted, “movement and Brooke are not friends. She just isn’t comfortable … It really, really doesn’t suit her.”

I think Brooke was kind of stuck in a catch-22 situation. If she kept playing the types of songs where she felt comfortable, she ran a huge risk of people like me complaining that things were getting boring and repetitive (like with Jason). But it seems those were the only songs where she was actually comfortable. Ask her to sing an up-tempo song and she looked like, well, a Muppet! (Note to Betsy: That’s an awesome comparison, and very apt!) And in this particular song, she sounded much worse than a Muppet. I don’t know what possessed her to sing it, but it was a terrible choice.

Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is to be found in the third rule. It speaks to the need to be consistent. Lately, Brooke has been anything but. Last week, I think she could have really had a good performance – except that she screwed up and restarted, ruining everything. If she was having confidence problems before that, it was completely shattered at that point.

I was a Brooke fan early on, but it started getting to the point that we just never knew what Brooke we would see. She kept going downhill. And what was probably even worse was that this week we were reminded of her failings last week when Ryan mentioned that she had lyrics written on her hand! Bad Ryan! I don’t think that was really something Brooke wanted people to know.

Now is a good time to also remember back to the Ryan Starr situation. For those who don’t remember, back in the first season, Ryan Starr gave an absolutely horrid performance of “You Really Got Me” and was not sent packing immediately. She made it exactly one more week. Sometimes, repercussions from bad performances take a week to sink in – yet another reason to ensure you’re consistently good.

The fourth rule tells contestants to be unique, and I believe Brooke succeeded quite well in that regard. Even when the deck was stacked with blondes early on, Brooke stood out with her style and personality. As time went on, we definitely saw her come into her own (and then, unfortunately, fall apart).

Brooke also had a few memorable performances, thus doing well by the fifth rule. And viewers definitely remembered who she was – though in the past few weeks, she probably wished we would forget. This was not an issue for Brooke.

Nor was the sixth rule, which says that you are a package. As was mentioned by several different people this week, her second performance was a good showing of who she is and what we expect from her. The only way that could be said was because she had shown that to us before – we know what the Brooke “package” is. Beyond that, I think we all have a good idea of the kind of album she’ll release (of course, she already released an album pre-Idol, but that’s not what I mean).

The seventh rule tells singers not to argue with the judges. For most of her time on the show, Brooke did the opposite of arguing – she agreed. But the way she did it annoyed many people, myself included. She wouldn’t shut up. She would interrupt and just talk, talk, talk. It’s good that she was agreeable, but she just needed to be quiet!

Finally, we have the question of whether Brooke created a fan base. The answer is an unequivocal yes. That’s how she managed to pull through those weeks when she perhaps deserved to be in the bottom or even out the door. No doubt, that’s how she made it through last week.

But the problem is that fan bases can’t necessarily always do it themselves. In this case, we saw what I think was the highest vote count yet for the season. And yet Jason Castro, who most people believed had the absolute worst performances of everybody, wasn’t even in the bottom two. Why not? Because his fan base dialed their fingers bloody to save him.

Brooke, on the other hand, had a decent second performance. Many of us suggested this might have saved her, but I should have known better. I mean, just looking at my pre-show prediction article with Sting7 should have been enough for me to see this coming:

If she has a stellar performance, she’ll probably be okay (because people will want to keep her). If she has a horrible performance, she might be okay (because fans will want to save her). If she has just an okay performance, she might be finished.

Brooke was not the most confident performer of the bunch coming into American Idol. She seemed to get better for a little while, but once the poor performances started piling up, she just fell apart. Her lowest point was probably last week’s restart, though “I’m a Believer” may be down there with it. Yet ironically, those might not have been what ultimately did her in. Instead, her comeback performance probably sealed the deal by making her not-as-bad.

Still, she put herself in that position over the past few weeks, and last week especially. Some contestants – such as Syesha – have spent recent weeks getting better and better. Brooke has gone in the opposite direction. She finally got to a point where the fan base she built up early just couldn’t save her anymore. She needed consistently good performances and just wasn’t giving those to us. That is why Brooke 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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