American Idol: 2.9.10 Hollywood Week

Welcome, Ellen!

Welcome, lots and lots of people who believe themselves to be The Next American Idol.

The first round is sudden death.  You sing (a capella or with an instument) and you are in, or you are gone.

Katie Stevens is up first, and she was a little froggy, but I still like her style and her voice.  She just sounded like she was singing too much in her throat.  The judges like her.


Skiiboski is up next.  I still don't find much interesting about him.  Ellen said she felt stalked by him, and he was performing like a leopard in a cage, and said it's a bad idea to scare your audience, and it's a fine line between sexy and scary.

Time to break them up into lines.  Katie is in, Skiiboski is out.  Good.  Skiiboski decided to plead his case, and Simon told him he's just not a very good singer, and he failed the audition.  Randy told him to change his stage name.

Montage of Simon hating everything, and Ellen letting people down in funny ways.

Vanessa Wolf and Andrew Garcia were good in the previous rounds.

Andrew has decided to sing Paula's Straight Up, with a guitar, and I like it.  I would listen to that on the radio.  It was very cool.  Too bad Paula isn't there to hear it.  He had the audience, that's for sure.  Too bad he had his eyes closed the whole time.  Kara called it genius, and Ellen put on the Paula over-the-head clap.  Kara said his interpretation was akin to Adam last season.  I wouldn't deny that.  I really liked it.

Vanessa's up.  I hope that she enjoyed her aeroplane and her peanuts on her aeroplane.  She looks damned nervous.  She kind of slaughtered Oasis in her audition, so sadly, I think Vanessa's going to be back on that aeroplane.  Ellen told her to embrace her unique qualities, and her nerves were clearly evident.

Tasha Layton was also in the line, but we didn't get to hear her.  Andrew is in, Tasha is in, but Vanessa is out.  Hope that she comes back.

Montage of disappointed rejectees.

Cornelius Edwards who split his pants in his initial audition was horrible, and Maegan Wright was disappointing, even though I was mesmerized by her shiny sparkly purple nails.  Amadeo DiRocco shouted and got rejected. 

Janell Wheeler (did we see her before?) brought out her guitar and was super.  She's really really pretty and I like her voice.  Ellen called her amazing, and she is in.

Montage of people sucking on their instruments and vocally.

Haeley Vaughan has her guitar, and she did the country thing a little less, and was much more sparkly around the eyes than in her previous audition, and I liked her voice a lot.  She's good.

Mary Powers, the Rocker Mom, sang Pink, and it was a really good decision.  She's got a really good voice.

Both of them are still in for now.

Ellen messed with the last group, having them step forward and back and to the side, and then told them all that they were in to the next round.


Toddrick Hall, Charity Vance, and Ashley Rodriguez all made it in to the next round.

46 made it through Day 1.

Day 2, and the other half of the contestants got their chance in front of the judges.

Simon told them not to be nervous, not to be boring, and not to forget his words.

Jay Stone the beatboxer was bad.  There's a reason that beatboxing usually doesn't happen at the same time as singing.


Lilly Scott had her guitar and her silver hair, and she was interesting.  I like her and her peacock earrings.  Kara said everything about her was refreshing.

Lilly is safe, along with some guy named Sam.

Michael "I've been kicked off" Lynch missed his wife going into labor because he was in Hollywood.  He must really hate his dad right now.  It's really a shame, because he's got a good voice and her can play the guitar.  I don't like the random grunting.  Simon told Michael it was a good day.

Cancer Survivor Boy Justin Williams and Tim Urban are up next.

Tim is up first with his guitar, and sang David Cook's Come Back to Me, and proved that David Cook is much better than he is.  He was weak at the ends of phrases and lacked conviction.  Kara told him that the chorus was shaky.

Justin sang with a keyboard, and we didn't see a lot of his audition, Randy said it was interesting, and it didn't sound like a good interesting.

Justin is out, but Tim moves on. 

Paige DeChaucey and Erika Rose are out.  Both the Jersey sisters are out.


Maddie Curtis is 16, but looks about 30 in her dress.  She's the one with the four brothers with Down's.  She had a weird song choice and sang it well, in parts, but she seems off key in some transitions.  Simon agrees with me that it was the wrong song choice for her.

Casey James who too his shirt off for Kara in the initial audition brought the blues guitar to the stage, and dang, I like him.  Randy brought out the yo, dude and really loved him.


Casey is in.  Maddie is out, but hey, she's only 16.  Try again, Maddie!

In the last line of the day is Didi Benami and she is singing a Kara song.  I really dig her voice and her understated guitar work.  She does put on a really odd accent at times while she sings, but I love her, and I love her octave transitions.  She's wonderful.  Simon said that he really loved the song and likes the fact that she was a waitress.


Crystal Bowersox, single mom from Chicago, got a tattoo of her (adorable) son's name on her back to give her luck.  She sang Natural Woman, and she sang it well, guitar in hand.  I could really do without the dreads.  I really really hate dreads.  They make me want to go wash my own hair.  She got the whole audience singing backup for her, and she was good.  Simon told her she was infectious.

Both are safe.

And that's it for tonight.  Tomorrow - Group Round!  Fun fun fun.