Reality Resurrection
Michael Lynche needs to embrace his (TV) historic American Idol save
American Idol voters never fail to surprise and last night they nearly sent Michael Lynche — the most talented singer of the bunch — home. Thankfully the judges used their one and only save of the season to keep him around, but it shouldn't have come that close.
This is what makes the show so frustrating — people like Tim Urban and Katie Stevens stick around while Michael Lynche has to “sing for his life.” It makes no sense. Michael outshines them in talent and performance, and yet he almost left. This is only the second time that the save's ever been used in American Idol.
I blame the teen vote. Who else would keep Tim Urban and the “oh so pitchy” Katie Stevens alive? Every time Tim Urban steps up to sing, girls scream — he could be completely in-genuine and cheesy, or off key, it doesn’t matter. To them, he’s hot and therefore worthy of a full night of text voting.
As far as Katie goes, I have no words. Aside from the teen effect, I think she must be getting the compassion vote. The worst thing about the compassion vote, is it takes away voting from people who are actually talented and performing well — like Michael Lynche.
Another aspect working against Michael is that the majority of his voting audience doesn’t hear him live. I can tell the man’s got a powerful voice and probably chills a live audience to the bone. Unfortunately, TV doesn’t capture that. What gets transported over the airwaves is whatever the microphone picks up.
That is severely less than what he’s delivering.
The good news is, I suspect his fans will kick in and start voting for him more since he nearly got sent home. I just hope it’s enough to get him to the final three.