Paula Abdul: Is the 'Nice' Judge Too Nice?

Paula Abdul has always been known as "the good judge" on American Idol. She is supposedly there to offset "Mr. Nasty" himself, Simon Cowell. But throughout the entire competition, it has struck me (and many others) that she doesn't really offset him. Simon, after all, can certainly be blunt in his assessment of any faults the singers might have. But he can be just as effusive in his praise when he feels a contestant deserves it. Paula, on the other hand, always makes positive comments.

I wanted to take a look at this and the new official American Idol book gave me a way to do it without having to find tapes of every previous episode to rewatch. (You can click here for my full review of the book.) The book provides brief comments from each judge on the performances from each of the semi-final 30. Let's take a look at what Paula had to say. Her even remotely non-positive comments are in red:

• Tamyra: What a brilliant way to start off the show.
• Jim: Good job.
• Adriel: Sounded awesome.
• Rodesia: Great song to sing.
• Natalie: You're still an awesome performer.
• Brad: I thought you were disconnected from the song.
• Ryan: Ryan, you amaze me.
• Justinn: Overall you gave a good performance.
• Kelli: You've been consistently wonderful.
• Christopher: The voice of an angel.
• Gil: I think this is your best performance.
• Angela: You really shined.
• A.J.: I've seen better performances. Lack of energy.
• Tenia: You look stunning. Tough song to sing. You started off shaky but connected halfway through.
• Alexandra: The talent is just getting so superior.
• Jazmin: This is a difficult song to sing, and you certainly pulled it off - beautiful voice.
• Jamar: I'm not crazy about the song selection. The key was a little too high for you.
• Kelly: When it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• Justin: You gave it some quiet sincerity and I really, really enjoyed your performance.
• RJ: You gave a solid performance.
• Kristin: I enjoyed your performance better when I first saw it in Dallas.
• Mark: I fought for you in Chicago. I love your voice but I didn't care for the song choice.
• Nikki: I've always admired the fact that you kind of march to the beat of your own drum. I love your voice.
• Chris: You did a great job; however, I'm not blown away by your choice of song.
• Melanie: You did a great job. Good for you.
• Tanesha: Your voice is really pure and beautiful. You don't need to do so many vocal runs.
• Khaleef: I think you took the song and you made it yours. Your voice sounded excellent.
• Christina: You have such star presence. The camera loves you.

So out of 30 performers, that's a whopping eight slightly non-positive comments. And even within those, five contained positive statements, which means there were only three true criticisms! And what were they? "You were disconnected from the song." "I've seen better performances. Lack of energy." "I'm not crazy about the song selection. The key was a little too high for you." None of them were exactly scathing.

Compare this to Randy and Simon. Randy made 13 negative comments (and they were not the same type as came from Paula, with her generally finding a way to still be positive) and Simon had 17 (if I'm generous, as a few were kind of half praise/half critical).

Mind you, this is the same Paula who, in the book, says her advice is, "First you have to be brutally honest with yourself." How does she expect people to be honest with themselves when she tiptoes around providing actual helpful criticism? I'm sorry, but "You've done better before" is not a great aid in getting somebody to improve. An even better example takes us back to the initial cuts from 10,000 or so applicants. Paula told people to get some additional coaching. Simon, in his much more honest (and blunt) fashion, told people not to bother - they aren't going to be singers. Why didn't Paula say the same thing?

Another example was Ryan Starr's second to last performance, when she destroyed "You Really Got Me" in what Simon described as "absolutely dreadful." What had Paula said? That Ryan had lost track of the vocal, but was still sexy as hell. Excuse me? And then, after Simon's comment, Paula jumped in to say, "I don't think dreadful is the right word to use at this stage in the game." Simon correctly replied, "You wanna bet?" And you know what? Simon was right. As much as I'd liked Ryan, that particular performance was horrible. Paula should have said so. Hell, Randy called it "really bad," why couldn't Paula be honest as well?

Is Paula afraid that being honest will tarnish her image? Or is she simply too nice to really be a judge? No matter what the answer, I hope she either decides to add a bit of honesty to her evaluations for the next American Idol, or decides that judging a talent contest is really not for her.

Don't get me wrong, Paula seems to be a very nice person. But nice people don't necessarily make good judges of talent. In fact, as we have seen here, it can often be quite the opposite.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

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