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American Idol Results: The Final 24 Announced
Simon Cowell dashed some hopes and dreams tonight. (AP Images)
It was time to crush the spirits of future karaoke bar patrons and Fall Out Boy cover band frontmen - American Idol cutdown night!
Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul did the business Wednesday by getting rid of a bunch of decent singers who had absolutely no chance of winning. Why delay the inevitable for another week? The 26 who were sent home got to see Hollywood for a while, some face time on national television and a chance to hookup with each other before going back to their banal existences.
One of these unfortunate souls was Josiah Leming, the nappy-haired Tennessee native who quit school at 17 to live out of his car. For such a hardened road warrior, he sure cried a lot. His inability to maintain a true character (one minute he was a humble soul, the next an overconfident annoyance) and awkward song stylings - what was up with the faux-Brit accent, anyways? - led to his demise. He can now go back to finding good bowling alleys to park his house in front of.
On the flip side, there were some feel-good stories. Amanda Overmeyer, the rock-and-roll nurse, made it through. Overmeyer is the kind of girl you look at and think "man, she could kill me in a game of quarters." And that game of quarters is actually played with Jack Daniels. ANYWAYS, she is fiesty and has a gravelly voice, meaning Jackson and Cowell can do nothing but compare her to Janis Joplin. For renowned talent scouts, these guys have a real inability to conjure up original musical comparisons for their potential American Idols. Rock girls always have a "Janis Joplin thing going on" while rock guys invariably have a "Chris Daughtry thing going on." I assume the latter means they're bald and sound like watered-down Nickelback.
The Bodog Sportsbook has been following the American Idol action and has a bunch of props up now on various aspects of the show, including:
Which celebrity will be first to appear as a guest judge, performer or mentor on American Idol 7?
Right now, the odds-on favorite is Blake Lewis at 6/1. This probably has a lot to do with the fact ol' Blakey doesn't have a lot of action on the ol' calendar these days.