American Idol 7: Why Jason Lost

In recent weeks, we’ve seen Idols go home after a night of singing when they weren’t the worst. This time, even on a night when a frontrunner faltered, Jason Castro was still obviously the worst and he went home. Sometimes, folks, things work out the way they are supposed to. But is it really that simple? Of course not! That’s why we need to figure out why Jason lost.

To do so, we will take the same path as usual – by going through What ‘American Idol 7’ Contestants Need to Know in our quest to see how Jason went from being so right to so wrong.

Our look at the first rule will be easy. It says to show singing and performing talent. I’m not going to bother with the usual listing of who said what about Jason, because pretty much everybody was in agreement (though of course I encourage you to read Betsy’s recap, We’ll Be the Judge of That!, and The NGH Report to find out all of our thoughts). As Simon said, it was “atrocious.” Randy even used the k-word (“karaoke”). And then Jason compounded his problems by forgetting the words of his second song! Bad, bad, bad.

Part of Jason’s problem could be attributed to his failure in the second rule, which deals with song choice. Jason should have picked songs he could use to show us why he deserved to still be on the Idol stage. Instead, he took the lazy route and, as he said on the results show, picked songs that he already knew (which makes it that much worse that he forgot the lyrics on one of them!).

The third rule tells contestants to be consistent, and Jason failed here as well – especially over the past few weeks. While I was never a big fan, Jason began the season well and gathered a following because he gave some early performances that were seen by many as being great. But then he started falling apart. Each week seemed worse than the previous one. It seemed obvious that it was only a matter of time before his charm wore thin while his performances were even thinner.

But Jason did succeed in a few areas. Look at the fourth rule, for example. Jason was certainly a unique Idol competitor – he stood out among his peers this season and was like nothing we’d ever seen previously. Indeed, his dreadlocks alone made people notice him, and his coffee house guitar strumming added to his image.

Eventually, Idol generally does come down to the best singers – as it has this season. But along the way, anything a contestant can do to make it another week is generally a good thing. So in this regard, Jason did indeed do well.

The same can be said about the fifth rule, which is to be memorable. Jason’s uniqueness helped to make people remember him. But unfortunately, there were other things about Jason that also were memorable to many viewers. There was the fact that he kept screwing up, for example. Or yawning on the show. Or acting like he didn’t want to be there anymore.

Eventually, those negative aspects started to overshadow any positive ones. It was no longer, “Hey, you know the dreadlocked guy with the guitar?” Instead, it was, “Hey, you know that guy who screwed up and sounded horrible? No, not a David, the other one.”

And that affected his ability to do well in regard to the sixth rule, which reminds contestants that they are a complete package. In his final weeks – especially the last seven or so days – the package that is Jason was stamped, “Return to Sender.” As if his nonverbal cues on-stage weren’t enough of a hint that he didn’t want to be there anymore, he flat-out told Entertainment Weekly that he had the weakest voice of the remaining contestants and didn’t really care if he was sent packing! Pack him up and ship him out!

Because the seventh rule really didn’t come into play here – Jason didn’t argue with the judges even when they dragged his performances over hot coals – and because it links directly with what I just said above, we’ll head directly to the eighth rule. That one talks about the importance of creating a fan base.

Jason did a good job of this early on. As I mentioned, he had some performances in the initial rounds that really grabbed fan attention. Jason had himself a solid group of voters backing him. Indeed, that’s how he survived as long as he did after his performances faltered.

But at some point, all but the most rabid fans are going to start wondering why they are putting so much time and effort to support a contestant who has made it obvious that he doesn’t even really want to be there anymore. I mean, I know I'm probably not representative of his fan base, but if the guy I was rooting for showed the utter lack of enthusiasm he has shown recently and even said in interviews that he doesn't care if he goes, I'm not bothering to dial for him anymore. If he doesn't care, why should I? Given that the other three were so close in terms of votes and Jason wasn’t, it seems pretty clear to me that at least some portion of his fan base came to the same conclusion.

In essence, it appears like Jason pretty much gave up. I don’t know if he had gotten to that point before his performances started going down hill or if the poor performances led to him figuring he wasn’t going to win, which in turn led to his lack of enthusiasm for the process. Either way, everything went hand in hand. Jason’s performances became the most talked-about because of how bad they were rather than how good they were. He nonverbally told everybody he didn’t want to be there anymore, and then capped it off by verbally saying essentially the same thing.

Jason did a lot to get himself to this point, and that cannot be taken away from him. But when he stopped trying, his performances suffered and he appeared to stop caring, so did the viewers. It’s like the said, “You don’t want to be there? Fine, then go home.” That is why Jason 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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