"God Bless the Child" on Idol?

Not everyone with "talent" will be in the final group selected. You can bet they will select some "human interest" personalities - e.g., a "youngster like a 15 year old "phenom" (who'll be eliminated in mid season), a "difficult" personality, and, of course, a "compelling" personal story (single Mom, or dedicated to someone with a misfortune). This year's group has much better pure singing talent than last year in comparison. Finally, I am deeply suspicious after how AI "manipulated" the last few shows of last season to make the eventual winner look more impressive with more staged "dramatic" presentation and Seacrest "hyping" of his "underdog" personality. In the end, does anyone remember what the two finalists are doing now? Even my "favorite" finalist Bowersox has disappeared into the pop-culture void. Compared to this season's AI crop so far, even last year's final two would have a tough time among this groups last 24. Yeah, that "GBTC" was a sweet one time performance. Can he do more types of music and be equally compelling? That's the challenge for the AI contestants- to show they are more than a "one trick pony". OK, I admist AI is a nice once in a while break from my intense rapt attention on my tube-analog system

The poor fellow over-cooked the song to death and added every pyrotechnic, vocal inflection and scat-jab in his bag. Can't blame him but it made for an uneven delivery.That said, the guy has really serious raw talent as does the upright-bass fellow and a few others.

Anyone care to guess how much "work" Tyler has had on that face? Or how truly vapid Lopez is :o) Anyway, its a nice mid-week diversion with the kids. Almost as much to make fun of as there is to genuinely like.. Viewer manipulations galore but there are some young singers this year that are better than any I've seen there since Daughtry.

I watched for the first time this season just to humor my wife and thought there were some fine singers. And yes, that guy with the bass seemed to be genuinely talented.
I prefer Simon as a judge. His reality checks made sense to me.

I agree that there are a few standouts that show some real promise. I believe that some choices in the top 25 will be for drama or human interest stories.

Let us not forget that this is an ENTERTAINMENT program that exists to generate ad revenue for the network and viewer ratings which sets ad rates. The fact that they find talent is a by product. This will become evident as the weeks progress and you see how the performers are portrayed by creative editing and promo's showing things that have been taken out of context and used to generate more viewers and it will have very little to do with the actual talent of whom-ever they are focusing on.

They did the same thing last year and it was very sad to watch. I think that is why Simon left before the show really took a dive into TMZ/Inside Edition territory.(CRAP TV) I believe the ratings were the lowest ever last year. I hope that the show will focus more on the music and talent and not the "Reality TV" trainwreck everyone wants to watch.

After reading this post I checked out his performance.
Incredible voice and passion. The young lad has mad chops.
Given the right guidance I'd have to think his chances for a career in music should be good. Almost would be waste to see him get pipelined in pop. Blues and jazz is his bag. I'd gladly give up all my audio gear, cds, albums, and right arm for a voice like that.