Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Hollywood Rounds: Part 1


Welcome back. The auditions are over and the competition is really going to get going now. In any reality-based competition the ultimate goal is eliminating contestants to find the one winner. Before these rounds you are adding contestants through the audition process,  from now on the show will be eliminating contestants and weeding out the borderline contestants with the outstanding contestants with the "shouldn't have received a Golden Ticket in the first place" contestants.

This is a quick list of some notable contestants from our recaps from each audition round. There are going to be some contestants that others might like missing from our list, some might disagree with the inclusion of some contestants on the list, but given over 200 contestants were picked to go to Hollywood we can't include everyone. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these particular contestants and see which contestants we should have included.

Our Top Audition Contestants From Each City
Nashville-Cameron Bedell, Michael Simeon, Piper Jones, Garrett Miles, Sarina Joi-Crowe, Savion Wright

Kansas City-Jess Lamb, Anton Bushner, Ellen Petersen
 

New York-Jax, Adam Ezegelian, Katherine Winston, Travis Finlay, Hollywood Anderson

Minneapolis-Vanessa Andrea, Hannah Mrozask, Mark Andrew

New Orleans-Angelica "Jelly" Joseph, Mikey Duran,, Ricky Hendricks, Adam Lasher, Erica Washington

San Francisco-Chandler Leighton, Ryan Pinkston, Rayvon Owen, Maddie Owen, Adanna Duru, Tara Honda, Rocky Peter, Tyanna Jones


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Tonight we will keep track of the rundown of the show and try to feature as many notable contestants and give as many opinions and thoughts along the way. This should be an interesting night. If you all remember, last season's middle rounds were sort of a mess, so I am excited to see how they switch things up this season.  So as we always do, let's get to it:

Hollywood Day 1

Notable Audition Contestant Performances
The judges have decided to listen to some notable performers from the audition rounds, but they don't tell the contestants that they are notable contestants.  

Jaq-She sings "Toxic" from Britney Spears but it doesn't sound like the original. She switches it up to play it as a slowed down, piano version. Jaq is as great as I remember.
Mark Andrew-Sounds great with his gravely, soul sound.
Emily Brooke-Country girl with a sweet voice, not especially distinctive.
Sal Valentinetti-Still pure Frank Sinatra-ish.
Adam Ezegelian-The white dude with the white afro. His voice is really smooth and powerful at the same time, a little rough at a couple points.


Tyanna-Her voice is nice, has a few flaws, but without having a band or anything she does a nice job.
Savion Wright-He was notable from last season, and is still a nice perfomer and has a great voice.
Hollywood Anderson-His voice is so distinct. He takes Adele's "Someone Like You" and makes it so different that it doesn't sound like the original at all. I think Jaq did a better job of keeping the intergrity of the original while switching it up. Hollywood did way too much with the song.
Shannon Berthiaume-During her audition in Minneapolis she came off as a great singer but way too strong and out of control, this time she is more subdued and bluesy. I enjoyed this performance immensely more until she forget the lyrics and it gets a little off the track, but she recovers decent enough.

Adam Lasher-This is the guy that is Santana's nephew and JLo thought he kinda looked like Jimmy Fallon. Over all of that he just has a great, solid voice. It's exciting to hear him his some of the runs that he does.
Garrett Miles-This is a cool guy. He has a lovely tone to his voice. He doesn't overdo it, he just does everything he needs to to be effective.
Trevor Douglas-I really didn't like his voice to much during his Nashville audition, but this was much better. His softer moments were very in tune, and then the faster part of the song had some really cool runs. It was a great performance.

Joey Cook-She is still very quirky. She was the one that auditioned with the accordion, this time she performs with a ukulele. I like that she is different.
Amber Kelechi-She was having a meltdown outside the auditorium. During her performance she decides to get off the stage and get closer to the judges. I didn't like it. The whole thing was okay, but not great.

Results=The judges bring all the contestants on stage that sang (including about 25 others that we didn't hear sing) and tell them that they were among the best from the audition cities, and despite how they sang they were all moving to the next Hollywood round. 38 Contestants advance.

Hollywood Day 2
Lines of 10
The contestants are put into Lines of 10 to perform for the judges.

Line 1 Notable Contestants= Reno Anoa'i, Priscilla Barker, Jaq Mackenzie
Results Moving On= Reno, Jaq and 3 other people we didn't hear. 
Results Going Home=Priscilla and 4 other people.

Montage of Notable Contestants Going Home=Courtney Gunns, Tara Honda, Courtney Zahn. 

Line 2 Notable Contestants=Erica Washington and 9 other people we don't hear sing.
Results Moving On/Going Home=Erica moves on. Not surprisingly we don't know who else moves on or goes home.

Line 3 Notable Contestants=Big Ron Wilson, Michael Simeon and 8 other people we don't see sing.
Results Moving On= Big Ron, Michael and 3 other people.
Results Going Home=Jacob, Ally and 3 other people

Line 4 Notable Contestants=Gabby Zonneveled.....(we see her forget the words and start to freak out)

And with that we end the show on a "dramatic" note.

Final Thoughts

*I enjoyed a lot of this episode. I thought there were some really nice performances. Some contestants continued to be great like Jaq, Adam Lasher, Mark Andrew, Savion Wright and Garrett Miles. Then there were some contestants that really stepped it up from their auditions like Shannon Berthiaume, Adam Ezegelian and Trevor Douglas. Then there were some that had some missteps like Hollywood Anderson and Amber Kelechi. It was a good mix of talent that enabled us to possibly see where the contestants are heading.

*So the first part of the episode was interesting. The judges bringing up 38 contestants to sing, based solely on their audition rounds was cool, what I didn't like is that there was no actual judging.I know the judges were giving them the benefit of the doubt because they performed so well the first time, but maybe this time around they weren't good, why keep them? I know it's mean to say that, but I feel Hollywood rounds should be a bit more cutthroat.

*The "Jennifer Lopez Love" portion of the show is getting silly. We have seen at least 6-10 male contestants go on and on about their love for Jennifer, that they want her phone number, that they want to date her or other things skeevy. Tonight featured at least 3 guys saying something about her, but we have seen several others, including very young contestants say something that makes the whole thing kind of creepy. I know this is the first time since Jennifer has started to judge that she has been single, but this feature is getting tired. I'd rather see 10-30 more seconds of notable performances than see 10-30 seconds of dudes that are all hormonal.

That's it. Come on back here tomorrow night for more Hollywood rounds. Hopefully you enjoyed the recap and will continue to enjoy it. So until next time, see ya!

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