This week I will deal with the Austin and Los Angeles auditions for American Idol, and anybody actually watching the show knows that I’m about a week behind. I’ve worked a lot of hours over the past couple of weeks. I’m missing the Thursday meeting with Nathan tonight because I was called in. The only reason I had time to see the show finally today is because my roommate is also working a lot of hours, and I was watching the little one until he got home.
The big problem is that I’m running out of steam as to what to say about these people who are auditioning. I think part of it was that while there were good auditions, very few struck me as truly amazing. So a lot of the time I was just like, oh, they were good, you know. Yeah. I might have just been tired, but the large amount of bad auditions, with a bunch of just ok auditions, and then a small few standout auditions, made it hard for me to be impressed.
The Austin auditions seemed to want to showcase everyone with southern twang, whether they auditioned or not, or were good or not. Not everybody sounds like that here. In fact, listening to me talk is more akin to listening to Ben Stein call roll, except that Stein isn’t quite so monotone. But I have no twang in my voice, even if I sound like I’m on Valium.
Corey went first, and he had an almost woman like high pitched speaking voice, but it translated well to singing.
Hollie was a little seventeen year old. Randy said no and almost killed her spirit. She did get through though. I spoke about a fifteen year old girl last article where she was better than a lot of the people they sent through that first audition show, but all of a sudden Randy was wearing his Heels of Choosy Critique. Like with that audition, I hope this girl works hard to prepare for Hollywood, because she was good.
John Wayne was a cowboy, even in this case. He had a good country voice. But good country… There’s a bumper sticker, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.”
Next was this girl named Courtney who was “in love” with Ryan. She was not great, but she at least had some potential in there somewhere. I think Randy said it best that she has some bad habits to work on.
Then they did a whole bunch of people who made it through, and I couldn’t keep up.
Jacqueline and Nick were boyfriend/girlfriend. She was good. He was ok. They both made it to Hollywood though, so that’s what counts.
Janelle was quite good, albeit twangy, possibly Top 12.
The last audition in Austin was a Seth Rogan-ish looking guy named Casey. Wow. He was pretty unique, and I’m going to absolutely call Top 12 for him. I’ll even say possibly Top 6. He’s the first one I’ve said for sure for Top 12, so we’ll see whether I’ve got this one. When I’ve said possibly Top 12 about people it’s because they either definitely or possibly have the voice to make it to Top 12, but I wonder if they have the stage presence and personality to standout. I think this Casey guy does.
Now onto the Los Angeles auditions, which were, by screen time standards, pretty awful.
Tim was pretty good. He was the guy who liked Jennifer Lopez. Well, he was the one on the Los Angeles audition show, at least. It seems like there are a lot of guys coming in going, “I have a crush on you, Jen.” I wonder if seeing her in the thing she had on her head the second day would have changed his mind. She was so pretty the first day of Los Angeles, and then she put on that head scarf thing. She was still pretty, but I guess it was a bad hair day. I sound like a gossip columnist. I apologize.
Karen was good. They made a big deal that she was a My Space audition. I guess that in addition to the different city auditions, you could audition on My Space, and I guess they would tell you whether or not to come to a city audition or get a life. They were a little unclear, and it seemed more like a promotional thing than a valid auditioning process. I may be wrong.
Heidi was also a belly dancer. She has a decent voice, and she could dance well.
Mark and Aaron were brothers who auditioned together. They sang quite well. They sang “Lean on Me.”
The show had been miserable so far, and it got no better after that.
Hopefully, I’ll have a day off tomorrow, or at the very least can find some time this weekend to comment on the last audition show or shows. I was told that it was either the last audition show or the last week of audition shows. I didn’t realize that I didn’t understand until I couldn’t clarify. I’ll try to post my thoughts on Sunday, and then I guess I’m going to have to start watching on schedule, especially when the competition shows start.