American Idol 11 (2012) St. Louis Auditions Recap
American Idol is in its 11th season. The last round of initial auditions airing this season took place in St. Louis. The show is broadcast on Thursday, February 2, 2012. It starts at 8 p.m. Eastern time on FOX and lasts one hour.
In addition to the singing auditions, Madonna's new video will get a world-premiere preview during the St. Louis auditions episode. Her new song "Give Me All Your Luvin" features Nicky Minaj and M.I.A.
The auditions have been spectacularly bad so far for American Idol 2012. Only a handful of people have really stood out at all, and it's looking like Phillip Phillips will easily be the biggest standout of all the initial auditions.
Next week, the Hollywood round begins, and hopefully we will start to see some better performances. According to spoilers at TheIdolPad, a good portion of the contestants who make the Top 24 have either not been shown at all or were only shown briefly in the initial city-based auditions. This suggests extremely either extremely poor planning on the part of Idol editing, lopsided city auditions that produced poor results in some cases or just a plethora of bad song choices by the eventual Top 24.
At any rate, it does appear like we could have a lot of talent this year, but we certainly haven't seen much of it yet. We may just have to wait until St. Louis is over tonight and see the talent start to shine during Hollywood Week.
Carrie Underwood auditioned in St. Louis. They show a recap of that to start the show.
Johnny Keyser is the first auditioner. His parents divorced. He hangs out and does stuff with his dad. This is a lame backstory. He sings "A Change Is Gonna Come." This was a good audition. It is very soulful. This is an easy pick for Hollywood.
Rachelle Lamb is going through a divorce. She blames her husband for holding her back. What a lame thing to say with your daughter in your lap! Stupid Idol. She sings Faith Hill's "Find Somebody New." It's an okay peformance, but she has no originality.
Reis Kloeckener was bullied in school. He doesn't seem to care that much, and I wonder if this story is being forced on him by the producers. He sings "Lean on Me." It's just average. He lacks power and has breath-control problems. The judges claim it was great, but it's a big exaggeration.
Ethan Jones dropped out of school to pursue music. He was in a band with his dad, who had drug and alcohol problems. He sings Edwin McCain's "I'll Be." It's certainly not as good as Bo Bice from Season 4, but it's pretty good. This sounds good enough for Hollywood. He gets a unanimous vote to go to Hollywood.
An employee of the hotel, Mark Ingram, is auditioning. He sings "Overjoyed." He misses a lot of notes, but parts of it are good. This is not very good overall. He does not make it to the next round.
Lauren Gray works in the family business, which is a one-stop wedding shop. Dad is also a musician, and he and Lauren are in the same Southern rock band. She has a lot of power, but the control could be better. She doesn't have a great vocal tone, either. Nonetheless, Lauren certainly deserved to make it to the next round, and she was apparently the highlight of the St. Louis auditions.
Sources:
TheIdolPad American Idol 2012 Contestant Spoilers and Listings
