Keeping Heels, Heads and Grace Notes High - American Idol Vintage 2013

Whether by producer-manipulation, pure quality, or a bit of both, American Idol's remaining five contestants this year are all female. That's never happened at this stage before, as far as I know. I suspect that, if a wee bit of tweaking and twirling went on by production staff, then it was very early on, maybe even before TV viewers entered the picture at audition time. We got to see a handful of decent-ish male vocalists but they were picked off steadily over past weeks, and were definitely several notches below these gals in the talent stakes.

Once female contestants do win on American Idol, they seem to find more lasting careers in The Biz: think Kelly Clarkson (80 number ones on the Billboard charts; 11 number one singles worldwide), Carrie Underwood (numerous national awards in the country music genre), and Jennifer Hudson (who didn't even win but came 7th - made her film debut in Dreamgirls (2006), it won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.)

This year's top 5, with a note for the astrologically inclined:



Top- left to right: Angela, Candice, Kree.
Bottom- left to right: Amber, Janelle.
(Hat-tip to Hollywood News for the photograph)


Angela "Angie" Miller (born February 17, 1994) from Beverly, Massachusetts (Sun Aquarius, Moon Taurus)

Candice Glover (born November 22, 1989) from Beaufort, South Carolina currently lives in St. Helena Island, South Carolina. (Sun Sagittarius, Moon Virgo or Libra)

Kree Harrison (born May 17, 1990) from Woodville, Texas. (Sun Taurus, Moon Aquarius, or if born after 10PM Pisces)

Amber Holcomb (born March 17, 1994) from Houston, Texas. (Sun Pisces, Moon Taurus or Gemini)

Janelle Arthur (born December 12, 1989) from Oliver Springs, Tennessee (Sun Sagittarius, Moon Gemini)


Candice is, I think, current favourite to win. She has been consistently excellent in classic "diva" style, but able to bend her vocal skills to encompass gospel, blues, ballads as well as modern styling. Amber, though "the whole package" of great looks, figure, legs up to here, and super voice in similar style to Candice, hasn't been as consistently excellent, and seems to lack a solid fan base. Angie's a singer songwriter type, best when she sits at the piano, plays and sings. Good voice but tends to be over theatrical - a tad high school pageantish when just singing with mic in hand. Janelle's a cheery, pretty down-home type country gal, strong traditional-syle country voice and engaging personality. Kree: another great voice, consistently good, able to swing either country-ward or to standard ballads or modern styling.

I see Candice and Kree as likely to be fighting it out in the May finale - though somehow I cannot see either of them reaching the heights of earlier Idol gals Kelly, Carrie or Jennifer, but do hope I'm proved wrong.

Here's the performance by Candice the judges raved about on Wednesday last week. She sang the Cure's Lovesong in the segment "Songs I Wish I'd Written".