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American Idol Top 24

February 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on American Idol Top 24 

American Idol Top 24, Wednesday night, American Idol revealed 14 singers who made the semifinals of this year’s competition. The show’s producers didn’t quite finish the list Thursday. The judges added four women and six men to get to 24 but then threw in a last-minute monkey wrench.

They’re adding one more guy — either Richie Law, Jermaine Jones, Johnny Keyser or David Leathers Jr. They’ll reveal the extra contestant on next Tuesday’s show (the women sing on Wednesday).

So who’s in the mix so far? A lot of country singers, that’s for sure. At least three women — Skylar Laine, Chelsea Sorrell and Baylie Brown — identify themselves as country singers, but Hollie Cavanagh also sang a Carrie Underwood song during her “sing for your life” performance. On the guy’s side, there’s West Virginia native Chase Likens.

The Top 24 includes a few older singers, like Adam Brock, but there’s a lot of youth, with teens like Shannon Magrane, Eben Franckewitz, Jessica Sanchez and Jeremy Rosado.

The guys seem to have more stylistic diversity. In addition to Chase’s Appalachian country voice, there’s Deandre Brackensick, with his Hawaiian-influenced falsetto; Joshua Ledet, with his church-raised shouting; Phillip Phillips and his unique reinterpretations; and the unpredictably unusual Creighton Fraker and Reed Grimm. This week showed just how deep the talent is on the women’s side, but most of them seem to fit traditional molds: country singers, pop divas or bluesy belters.

One thing there’s not: A clear favorite. At this point last year, Lauren Alaina was already a shoo-in for the finals, as was Casey Abrams. Scotty McCreery was already making an impression, too.

This year, though, the producers haven’t pushed the backstories particularly hard, and they’ve done a relatively good job of showcasing everybody (though Chase Likens, Hallie Day and Aaron Marcellus couldn’t have been thrilled with the face time they got on Thursday’s show). So, while several of the singers have given excellent performances, no one seems to have captured the audience’s heart the way Scotty did last year.

What does that mean? It means that song selection is going to be more important this year than ever before. Next week, the singers will have one chance to connect with a song and make that song connect with an audience. If they succeed, they’ll probably make the final round. If they fail, they’ll be going home.

And a lot of them will go home — 13 in all.

The Top 12 Men

Deandre Brackensick
Adam Brock
Colton Dixon
Creighton Fraker
Eben Franckewitz
Reed Grimm
Heejun Han
Joshua Ledet
Chase Likens
Aaron Marcellus
Phillip Phillips
Jeremy Rosado
The Top 12 Women

Baylie Brown
Hollie Cavanagh
Hallie Day
Jennifer Hirsh
Haley Johnsen
Skylar Laine
Shannon Magrane
Jessica Sanchez
Chelsea Sorrell
Elise Testone
Erika Van Pelt
Brielle Von Hugel
The four wild cards

Jermaine Jones
Johnny Keyser
Richie Law
David Leathers Jr.

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