AI:6 - 03/21 Results

March 22, 2007 · Filed Under popmedia

At first blush, I was quite surprised by a bottom two of Chris R. & Stephanie, and by Stephanie’s being sent home.

After some time to think about it, however, I’m not really that surprised. I’m more annoyed that I didn’t think about it enough beforehand to predict it.

Chris being in the bottom two really isn’t all that significant. There’s a lot of buzz, at least at the sites I read, that folks find him nasally & whiny. I think he’s just kind of forgettable. He might have trouble in future weeks, he might be ok for a few weeks. The only sure bet is that he won’t end up in the top four or five. Hindsight, though, tells us that he probably wasn’t all that close to getting voted off last night, though.

Stephanie, however, is a different story. Her ouster shouldn’t surprise us at all, despite the fact that she’s a better singer than at least three other folks still in the competition. Why? Well, I think it’s all about fanbase. Stephanie shares, to some degree, fans with Melinda, LaKisha, and (most significantly) Jordin. This fan bloc is not strong/large enough to sustain four singers for very long in a competition like this, not when others have quite distinct voting blocs of their own (like Sanjaya, Gina, Blake, and even Phil (military) do).

Jordin’s emergence over the past two weeks was key. Especially this week, with an iconic “AI Moment” type of performance. I think lots of folks migrated over to the Jordin camp full-bore, and didn’t throw any votes back Stephanie’s way. That really hurt during a week where Haley rebounded (by looking hot), Phil floundered, Sanjaya, well, was Sanjaya, and Gina showed vulnerability. Even LaKisha had enough issues to warrant extra care & votes from her camp. Add all that up, and you get conditions that don’t look very good at all for young, talented, and nice Stephanie.

Bummer.

Some semblance of normalcy might return to the proceedings next week, which probably doesn’t bode well for Haley, Phil, or Gina. As always, I hope that Sanjaya is sent packing, but I think that it’s probably still about two or three weeks too early for optimism on that front. We’ll see…

-ghp

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Tags: american idol, music, realitytv