My husband and I have watched American Idol from Season 1 on. Last year, Season 13, was the first time we stopped watching mid way through because it was so bad. The talent was just not there but worse than that, they picked people who could not perform. I could see it from the first auditions on. People who had not an ounce of interesting personality or charisma. We tried, we really did. But the overly enthusiastic judging, telling everyone they were the one to beat or were going to be in the finale. Randy Jackson just did not do the contestants justice with his mentoring. Harry Connick JR blasted him at every opportunity for his lackluster mentoring. And it was deserved but changed nothing. The winner was Caleb Johnson. His album “testify” was a huge bomb. Selling only 11k in albums the first week which made him the lowest selling idol winner to date. His coronation song, “As Long as You Love Me” failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Candice Glover the previous season winner’s album only sold 19k the first week.

Do you see where I am going with this? If not I will say it, when the season started last night my expectations were low, very low. I would like to say that after having watched I was relieved that I was wrong. But alas there was no relief so far because after seeing the first episode of the season my expectations are still low. They started out with letting us hear the top 24. They didn’t let us see their faces and had never done this before. But after hearing them I am not sure of what to expect other than a lot of similar sounding people and a few pretty good voices. Of course I need to see them perform. See the whole package, to make a real determination but I was not overly impressed. After that we saw 1 or 2 singers and a whole lot of what I call fluff. Silly outtakes of the waiting room or interviews with Ryan and a whole lot of judge banter. But didn’t I watch the auditions to hear, you know, singing? A few funny moments followed, with a few bad singers. But when we got to the finale singer of the night I was still underwhelmed. However the last singer, a young girl named Emily, was impressive and I will remember her. I am fairly sure I heard her voice in the final 24. I was pretty sure 1 other young men, I forget his name, but he got Jennifer Lopez to slow dance with him in what I thought was rather awkward but my husband said at least she’s a good sport. So for that I will remember him if not his name and Emily who could sing, and sing well. Tomorrow night is a 2 hour show and I really hope we see more singing, and more people who can actually sing because the majority of people they put through tonight did not impress me.

The glasses the judges drink out of have been pushing Coca-Cola every season that I can recall so why not now? I read it was because of the declining ratings and also that AT&T dropped out as a sponsor as well. Ford did remain.  Is this an ominous sign of things to come? My guess is yes.