Phillip Phillips Spoilers and Predictions for American Idol 11 (2012)
As American Idol's 11th season gets set to kick off auditions on Fox, TheIdolPad spoiler site has said that Phillip Phillips is in the Top 42. If he makes one more round, Phillip will sing for America's votes in the Top 24. After having seen his audition in an Idol commercial, my prediction is he has little to no chance of winning American Idol.
Phillip's audition suggests he is a soul singer, which is not a bad thing to be on Idol. That is pretty much what Taylor Hicks is, and he went on to win Season 5. The problem here is that Phillip is not as genuine as a Taylor Hicks. While Taylor has a lot of haters among the young crowd, reasonable spectators can see the genuineness of his soulful stylings and his complete joy of music.
The difference between Phillip and Taylor is that Taylor does not seem rehearsed when he is performing. It all seems so natural when Taylor gets into a performance. Phillip, on the other hand, seems rehearsed. If he continues to sing like that, it will seem less genuine over time.
Phillips is more like Aiden Grimshaw from the UK X Factor than Taylor. After a while, it just becomes apparent that it's all an act. I'm not saying this is exactly what is going to happen, as Phillip may be smart enough not to fall into this trap. But it certainly became clear with Aiden, who sang every single song the same exact way. If Phillips doesn't successfully diversify, he will be in trouble of getting stale if he makes the voting rounds.
In terms of the actual voice, it is decent. But his timing seemed off in the audition. This, however, is something that may have happened just because it was an a capella performance. The main concern is to come off as genuine, as that is what people identify as "soul." Right now, he just doesn't give off that vibe. As subjective as it is, people will come away feeling a bit cold if he does what he did with that "Superstition" audition.
In the end, we will have to see if Phillip Phillips has different singing gears. But the one gear we have seen will not get him to the finish line on American Idol 11.
Sources: