American Idol Season 7 Controversy: Contestant Carly Smithson Not an Unknown

On Wednesday March 13, 2008, the top 24 contestants for American Idol were announced. 12 ladies and 12 gentlemen made it through initial auditions as well as a week in Hollywood to grab one of those coveted spots. As Simon mentioned repeatedly throughout the Hollywood week: Season 7 has the best talent thus far. One individual that has added to this overall talent is contestant Carly Smithson. But there's something about Carly that not everyone is aware of yet: she's already had a record deal...and it flopped...terribly.

The point of American Idol has always been to give undiscovered talent a chance at being discovered. Well Carly Smithson or shall we say Carly Hennessy, has already had the chance at being discovered, and she didn't make it. While the American Idol rules clearly state that contestants cannot be under any sort of record deal at the time of competition, many believe that those with previous record deals should be excluded as well. 100,000 men and women came out and auditioned for American Idol's 7^th season and only 24 made it through. Is it really fair to give one of those spots to someone who already had a shot at stardom and didn't make it?

Carly Smithson was born in Dublin, Ireland. As a young child she spent time modeling and acting. She appeared in print ads as a young child and at the age of 9, she beat out many hopefuls for an international role in Les Miserables. At age 10, she released an album in Ireland titled Carly's Christmas Album. At age 13, she was named the Irish national spokes model for the Denny Sausage brand. While she was succeeding in the acting and modeling fields, singing was her true passion. She traveled with her father to Los Angeles in order to market her demo. Her demo landed at MCA Records and they signed a contract on the spot.

Her initial product wasn't pleasing to the record label or to the artist herself, so Gregg Alexander was brought aboard to help save her project. With Alexander's help, Carly released her debut album in 2001 titled Ultimate High. What MCA hoped was the next teen idol sensation ended up flopping horribly. MCA spent 2.2 million on promoting Carly's album but it only sold a dismal 378 copies. MCA dropped Carly and she headed back to Ireland in defeat.

Now this is not to say that Carly doesn't have extreme talent, her making it into the top 24 obviously proves what tremendous singer she is. But is it right for her to be able to compete on American Idol when America has already shown the record labels that she can't sell records? Its only fair to take into consideration that 7 years later, she'll probably have a completely different style and completely different songs, but when you look at Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard and all the other Idol winners who couldn't sell records, can you really expect Carly to do it the second time around?

Season 7 brings the best talent thus far, but it isn't true unknown talent. There are many fans cheering for Carly, and for good reason, the rulebook proves that she has every right to compete, but all I can think about is all of the other unknown Idol hopefuls that were sent home from Hollywood so that Carly, who has already had her chance, could go on to compete instead. I suppose only time will tell whether or not the seasoned Carly can prove that she truly deserves a second chance.

Sources:

Lyndsey Parker. "Irish Idol: Smithson's Secret Past", Reality Rocks.