Top-rated TV show “American Idol” sent home four more contestants on Thursday night with the help of more than 36 million votes coming from viewers, according to host Ryan Seacrest.
The contestants to go were Asia’h Epperson, 19, of Joplin, Mo., Kady Malloy, 18, of Houston, Luke Menard, 29, Crawfordsville, Ind., and Danny Noriega, 18, Azusa, Calif.
Let’s take them slowly now and see what they’ve done to “win” the exit ticket. Asia’h Epperson performed a song belonging to Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” attracting some mean comments from Judge Cowell Simon who qualified her for a “second-rate” Whitney.
Second on the black list came Luke Menard with “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and it seems he received a very kicking wake-up call since he was sent home.
Third came Kady Malloy, who risked too much with her version of Queen’s “Who Wants To Live Forever” making Simon saying she sang like a robot.
And the last on the list and the least expected to go home was Danny Noriega who performed “Tainted Love,” a song that brought him nothing but tears. Seacrest still called him “one of our most courageous performers ever.”
The twelve finalists include some controversial names such as David Hernandez who, according to the show’s producers, used to work as a male stripper in a Phoenix gay strip club, Syesha Mercado, a 21-year-old actress who’s appeared in a commercial for Ford, always-smiling David Archuleta, a 17-year-old crooner who won CBS’s “Star Search” in 2003 at only 12-year-old and Michael Johns, a 29-year rocker who moved from Australia to the US in 1998. The list is completed by Jason Castro, 20, Rockwall, Texas, David Cook, 25, Blue Springs, mo., Kristy Lee Cook, 24, Selma, Ore., Chikezie Eze, 22, Inglewood, Calif., Ramiele Malubay, 20, Miramar, Fla., Amanda Overmyer, 23, Mulberry, Ind., Carly Smithson, 24, San Diego, Brooke White, 24, Mesa, Ariz.
The finalists will be allowed to sing Lennon-McCartney Beatles songs next week, for the first time in the show’s seven-year history, as “Idol” producers recently secure rights for participants to perform the hard-to-get songs belonging to Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a company formed by Sony and Michael Jackson.
Following this big news, there shall be some surprises next week and, personally, I can’t wait for the big winner.
