I never watched Idol much before. I caught a few of last year's shows and kind of liked Crystal Bowersox and Casey James, but my attention waned and I didn't watch any of the shows near the end of the season. I think I only tuned in because a friend had raved about Adam Lambert the prior year.
This year I didn't have any allegiance to Haley at the beginning. The parts where she hit
God Bless This Child hard with the growl weren't to my liking.
It was with her performance of
Fallin' I first took notice. I thought this girl cleans up nice and can sing. I didn't buy into Randy's karaoke comment because I couldn't imagine anyone singing it that well off the street.When she faked gagging at the comment I thought that was endearing.
J-Lo's comment about her movement on stage was fair -- she spun awkwardly around at one point -- but that didn't matter much to me because it's a singing competition (Haley now fluidly spins at one point during every performance of
Tightrope).
I suppose I was hooked at that point. Because for the rest of the season I would typically be at my computer in a space just off the living room when the show was on and would only park myself in front of the television when she came on.
EDIT: Adding to what I wrote earlier...
In her exit interview with Slezak, in answer to the charge she didn't know herself, Haley said, "Hey, it's a theme show." So in the early rounds she was trying to fit her performance to the theme.
I think, staring with Moanin', she showed what she's capable of when performing in her wheelhouse. And thereafter , moving on to bluesy rock, she killed performance after performance because she began matching her technical abilities to songs she felt and understood.
So I had an interest in her early on, but those performances paid off my investment in her and made me a true fan.
(07-23-2011, 05:46 PM)john Wrote: when I saw something in May about Scotty winning the show I thought I'd check out the quality of the AI top performers.
John, I hate to break this to you, but Haley missed the finals by one vote. You could have made a difference!
Just kidding.
