Carly Smithson Says Goodbye to American Idol

There was little debate over who would go home on American Idol last night. The audience seemed to know it, the judges were pretty sure, and the contestants knew it. Brooke White was going to take the stage and sing her goodbye song, just as Kristy Lee Cook had done the week before. Her time had come after her weak performance the night before. The American Idol audience had resigned to that fact. It was not going to be an evening of surprises.

But then again, maybe it would be. After Brooke White was declared to be safe, the audience rumbled. If Brooke White was not going to get voted off of American Idol, who would? Maybe Jason Castro, who gave a train wreck of a performance the evening before. He had been incredibly out of his element on Andrew Lloyd Webber night and showed his limitations as an artist. Or maybe it would be Syesha Mercado, already waiting as one half of the bottom two. Syesha had been in the bottom on multiple occasions. Even though she managed to pull off a great performance the night before, it was possible that her lack of audience connection would be cause for her departure.

It was not Syesha, nor was it Jason. In a season of American Idol that has been filled with surprises, the audience got yet another one last night. Carly Smithson, the Irish bartender with the powerful voice, got voted off of American Idol in front of a shocked crowd.

A talented performer, Carly Smithson likely lost due to lack of popularity. It is no secret that American Idol is part talent competition and part popularity contest. Even though Smithson had the best female voice on American Idol, she lacked the wholesomeness that Idol's are required to have. Consider the popularity of Clay Aiken, or Taylor Hicks, with his grandfather like gray hair. Take Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, good girls who managed to gain fame on American Idol and beyond. Even Chris Daughtry, who was known as a rocker, had a clean cut quality about himself. That quality helped him to gain the popularity of young girls and older women, as well as his target audience of twenty and thirty year olds. Carly Smithson lacked that clean cut quality, which led to her loosing the popularity contest. With her tattoos and sleeveless shirts, Smithson possessed a quality that American Idol viewers were not used to. Not only was she the opposite of wholesome, but she had the audacity to flaunt it! Perish the thought.

Carly Smithson will be missed on American Idol. It is a sad day when pure talent is not enough to stay on a talent contest. In a world that is focused on looks over substance, maybe a talent competition was not suited for Smithson. However, she allowed the world to see that she can sing, and that she deserves a career past her limited run on American Idol.