With ABC showing The Oscars next week, Idol’s producers loaded up on good auditions this week. I’ve got six Idolists that I’m keeping an eye on.
Very Interested
Marybeth Byrd (If It Hadn’t Been for Love The Steel Drivers). My favorite audition of the season so far LOL. Very smooth. Polished. Confident. It’s early but she’s got to be Top 24 or whatever.
My Crack Research Staff (Google) has discovered that she was on The Voice in 2019 and was eliminated the week before the finale.
Olivia Soli (Hello Lionel). Hello, indeed, and the pleasure is mine. What is even happening??? What a wonderful interpretation of Lionel’s classic. Incredible vocal choices. I want to hear more. My new new favorite audition of the season so far LOL.
Elijah McCormick (Bless the Broken Road Rascal Flatts). Yes. This is my new new new favorite audition of the season so far. He’s Top 24. Should be Top 10. And can’t win because male gospel/R&B singers have never gone as far as their talent deserved on Idol.
Interested
Tanner Charles (original song Golden Eyes for his girlfriend). Not my taste, but he’s the kind of guy people will vote for. And the kind of whiny, sensitive guy that is popular in the market.
We´Ani (Anyone Demi Lovato). Whoa. Where did the young Beyonce´ voice come from? The lower part of her range was soulful butter and she has a wide range with power. I also happened to see that she has 23.5K Twitter followers which is a LOT more than other Idolists[1]. I then learned she is quite popular on TikTok (567K followers and nearly 6M likes). And then my Crack Research Staff (Google) really went to work and discovered she finished third on The Voice in 2016 under the name of We´ McDonald! Now I think she should be in my Very Interested category. This blind audition is killer.
Preston Duffee (original song Something to Write About). I was mesmerized by his song. I’m sure that he will be up against better country singers eventually, but I agree with Luke that there could be a natural songwriter in there. I’d like to see how Preston fares if his singing improves.
As always, these evaluations are not my predictions of future results and are constantly subject to re-evaluation under the light of my withering musings.
See you next week. I hope you get to listen to some good music. I know I will. Speaking of good music, have you checked out my two blogs on Adam Lambert’s new album?
Adam Lambert High Drama Review
Adam Lambert’s High Drama: Track by Track
[1] A cursory look at this week’s Idolists show many of them at a few hundred followers, if that.