American Idol Top 8 Results

Who should have been eliminated: Lazaro Arbos
Who I predicted would be eliminated: Burnell Taylor
Who was eliminated: Devin Velez

The men are being kicked off American Idol this season faster than they would be at a NOW convention.

That was bad news this evening for Devin Velez, who was certainly the strongest male last night in my view, but fell on the short end of the voting stick. Red and black symbolize the colors of the Chicago Bulls, who had a great win last night, clinching a playoff berth in the process, as well as the NHL leading Chicago Blackhawks, but wearing those colors on Wednesday were not as lucky for Chicago's Season 12 contestant.

We waited quite a while for results, as there were three guest performances before we were told who the first person safe would be. Usually, Idol likes to stagger that out. We learned that perhaps Colton Dixon and Angie Miller do not already know each other, despite what has been written about on Idol blogs, and also perhaps that Katharine McPhee was given a pity spot to perform on the show, since her NBC musical drama has been such a bust in the ratings. After all, her mother and sister are both Idol vocal coaches now. Keith Urban, a white guy with a guitar, also gave a performance, and thousands of cougars finally though they had someone they could power dial for.

By the end of the show, we saw an all male Bottom Three, which of course was made up of the guys who had such a disastrous group performance. I wrote that Devin carried the whole thing for the group, but he took the brunt of the punishment for it apparently, as Lazaro received the sympathy vote once again and Burnell survived based on his fan base.


Singing for the save, Devin reprised "Somos Novios (It's Impossible)", and I thought it started off not quite as effective as the first time he did it. The Spanish part though sounded pretty good, and I wonder if he regrets not incorporating the language into his performances the last couple of weeks, as he was at the bottom of the voting both times. The Latino voters may be gravitating towards Lazaro.

While he was singing though, and immediately after, the vibe in the studio seemed to indicate that it was very possible the judges would save Devin. They are only going to have three more weeks to use it now, so I assume they are going to wait until the first female comes in last, even if all the guys are done by then. Mariah Carey seemed to want to save Devin (and also indicated that she would have been willing to save the other dudes too), but the votes were not unanimous, and Devin was sent back to the Windy City.

During the semi-finals, I thought Devin came across as normal, humble, and promising. He may really be all those things, but my hunch is that he did not wear as well on America as time went by. He almost always seemed serene and collected while on television, but there was an air of aloofness to him as well, that some people may have considered arrogance. He is very young though,and comes across as much older than he is. The same may relate to his musical style and song choices, (such as his Perry como reprisal tonight) which indicate that there is nothing at all edgy or current about him.

In the future, Devin may make a living singing ballads for older audiences, or may attempt to break into the Latin music market. Perhaps it will be a combination of both. This is a really bad season to be a male on American Idol, and if these kids are smart, they realize that, and know they are just not at the level they would need to be to actually win the show, but still, the exposure and experience have to be considered the opportunities of a lifetime for them. It will be up to them to make the most out of things.

Based on voting patterns, which are a huge turnaround from recent seasons, it is quite likely that Burnell and Lazaro will be the next to go and we will have an all female Top Five. That is going to hurt the ratings even further, but I will still look forward to watching, as all of the ladies who are in the Finals this year are really talented. I wonder how many of them might have already been voted off though if they had taken part in most of the recent preceding seasons.

Nigel Lythgoe and the Idol producers are getting exactly the result they wanted this season, as it seems like they went to great lengths to even prevent the male singers, who would have been most popular with the Idol fanbase, from even getting to the Finals (or semi-finals for that matter.) Over the past two weeks, we have seen guest performances from returning alumni Casey Abrams and Colton Dixon. Both of them were voted out before the Final Four in their seasons, and both certainly were far from perfect as Idol contestants, but either of them, and for that matter any male Finalist from the previous two seasons, would have easily blown away any of this year's male Finalists in the voting had they somehow been put in this season.