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American Idol 8: Why Jorge Lostby David Bloomberg -- 03/13/2009
View Printable version of this article When I wrote about Why Jasmine Lost, I noted that I wasn’t terribly surprised and had even predicted it before the performances. However, Jorge’s departure was a bit more surprising to me (though not after he performed). What happened to derail Jorge’s dream? How did he sink to the bottom of the votes? Why did Jorge lose? Whether we say goodbye to one Idol or two, we still handle it the same way – by looking through What ‘American Idol 8’ Contestants Need to Know to see what Jorge did right and where he went wrong. 
As I have noted repeatedly this season, the first rule has played a major role because of the way the semi-finals were set up this year. Over the past few years, by this point in the competition we’d already seen contestants sing several times over and had a feel for who they were and what they could do. With the everything-old-is-new-again semi-finals format, we’ve only seen some of these folks sing twice, and Jorge was among that group. As noted in my article on What ‘American Idol 8’ Contestants Need to Know why Jorge, Lil, and Scott moved into the finals, I noted that Jorge had been identified as one of the top three performers in his semi-final round by a number of commentators (including myself), to the point that “it was as darned near unanimous as we ever get around here!” Unfortunately for Jorge, things went in very much the opposite direction when it came to his first (and last) finals performance. The on-site judges were less than enthusiastic. Kara noted that she didn’t feel an emotional connection; Simon said it was corny and beyond his abilities. Our Recapper Jenn felt it was solid and suited his voice, but she didn’t get much of a feel for who he is as a person. As she noted at the end, “after some reflection,” she put him in the bottom three. The Foxes On Idol judging panel may have been even harsher on Jorge than the on-site judges. Sandy noted some rough notes at the beginning and said the performance didn’t do much for her. Tyler called it “a humongous letdown.” New guy Preston complimented Jorge’s voice in general but said Jorge “didn't have the ability to show his strengths as an artist.” And I called it “probably my least-favorite performance from Jorge that we’ve seen (going back to his original audition),” adding that his voice “just didn’t sound good” sometimes and he didn’t have very good stage presence either (something to remember when it comes to the overall performance. Finally, Joseph Banks, in his NGH Report, had a couple good things to say about Jorge but noted, “nothing made this performance memorable.” He even compared Jorge to Jasmine, saying Jorge “might not quite know where he wants to go as an artist,” and predicted Jorge’s departure. So just as we were pretty near unanimous in liking Jorge’s semi-finals performance, the same was true in disliking his finals performance. Obviously, that’s not a good sign. 
Another topic frequently commented upon was his song choice, to which the second rule pertains. First of all, the name of the song contained the word “goodbye” in it, which is just tempting fate. I would advise all Idol contestants to stay away from such titles! On a more serious note, though, Randy thought the song was old-fashioned and wanted Jorge to choose something more challenging. Paula questioned the song choice as well. And Simon hated the arrangement of the song. Returning to Foxes On Idol writers (because, let’s face it, we are obviously more important than the on-site judges!), Preston also called the arrangement “old-fashioned” and the choice of song “somewhat puzzling.” I echoed the “poor song choice” thoughts as well. For his part, Jorge tried to defend himself by saying he couldn’t find a good song, but this is Michael Jackson we’re talking about – there had to be something there that he could make his own in a good way. After his semi-finals performance put him into the finals, I had noted that Jorge – like Lil and Scott – had picked a number that was perfect for his style. The same was definitely not true this time, and I believe Jorge simply wasn’t familiar enough with the songs to really make a correct decision. 1 2 Next-->View Printable version of this article
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