American Idol Season 18 Episode 1: How did Saveria not get through audition round? Something's fishy
The latest season of the popular singing show American Idol just premiered on Sunday night! This is the 18th overall season for the long-running TV show and its the third season on the ABC network in its new incarnation. All three judges from last season, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Ritchie reprised their roles this time around, with Ryan Seacrest and Bobby Bones continuing to serve as the show's host and full-time mentor respectively.
This hour-and-a-half long season premiere was pretty impressive - it fully showcased the diverse range of people that had turned out in droves to audition for the show. There were more than a handful of really impressive vocal talents, a couple of freakishly confident yet sadly deluded 'singers', and one jaw-dropping error that is sure to be a major talking point in the weeks running up to the Hollywood portion of the show.
If you've just finished watching the episode, we're sure you would have spotted the same appalling error we did. We're talking about the incredibly dumb decision to not give a golden "You're Going To Hollywood" ticket to Saveria, one of the best singers we've ever heard audition on the entire show, let alone that first episode.
Saveria is a 22-year-old singer who hails from Ontario, Canada. Despite her young age (she started singing at the tender age of 9), she is already a respectable singer and artiste in her own right, having released a few songs like 'Pity' and 'Down To The Roots' that have garnered her a sizeable following, online.
So when a clearly talented Saveria starting playing one of her originals, 'Tell Me This Is Real' her spellbinding, crystal-clear voice seemed certain to earn her a place in the Hollywood round. But the judges seemed to have a different take on her performance.
Lionel Richie recognized that she had great vocal talent, but he also admitted that he found himself drifting during her performance, and wasn't engaged enough. Similarly, Luke Bryan said that he wasn't fully "levitating out of his chair", even though he liked her voice.
The one sane voice of reason was Katy Perry, who gave Saveria a resounding "yes" as opposed to the other two male judges, who both declined to put Saveria through to the next round, which meant this was the first and last time we would see Saveria on the show. How unfair! Are 'American Idol' out of their minds?
In hindsight, this decision seemed harsh, confusing, and downright strange. This wasn't 'finals week' of American Idol, it was merely the audition round. All that the judges had to do was identify performers who were clearly talented at singing, and deny people who didn't have the requisite vocal chops. Saveria obviously had an amazing voice, so to see the judges give up on selecting her on the basis of one song was really cruel. Katy Perry herself was clearly mindblown by Bryan and Richie's rejection, and took a moment to vent/ scream her frustrations out - we felt like doing that ourselves!
The three judges could easily have given her another chance - another song to showcase the amazing versatility in her voice as they had done for many other contestants in the history of this show. But to reject her outright on the basis of one (pretty good) performance seemed bizarre and extremely fishy.
The judges obviously needed a certain 'wow factor' met in order to say yes to contestants, but if we were part of the judging panel on 'American Idol', Saveria would immediately have been ushered through to the Hollywood Round.
This girl is going places, with or without a golden ticket, so we can only hope she doesn't get discouraged by this stunningly bad decision and keeps churning out songs with her gorgeous voice!