His Future’s So Bright…

Was anyone as surprised as I was to see Michael Johns voted off American Idol last night? I picked him as one of my personal front-runners, along with David Cook, from early on in the series. Out of the two, however, I’d rather have seen Michael go for the simple reason that David seems much more certain of his direction as an artist. But I would have expected Kristi Lee Cook, Syesha Mercado, and Carly Smithson to leave before Michael.

It might be a good thing for him. It was for Chris Daughtry, another of my past favs. Of course, Bo Bice and Taylor Hicks were favs of mine, too. I bought the post-Idol CDs of all three, and only Daughtry’s didn’t disappoint me, yet he didn’t make it to the Final Two like Bice and Hicks. Both Bice’s and Hicks’s CDs sounded to me like some record producer’s idea of what they should sound like to appeal to the broadest spectrum of buyers. I understand Hicks has been dropped from the post-Idol record label, and I caught a recent interview with Bice where he mentioned getting back to his own style of Southern rock with his second album. I might have to give him another chance, because the first album didn’t “sound” like the Bo Bice I’d come to know on American Idol at all.

This is where I confess I’m not a fan of the American Idol voting format. I much preferred the format in the Rock Star series, where the public narrowed the choice to the bottom three every week and then the judges decided who got the boot. How about you? Do you prefer the Idol voting system, where it’s the calling-in public’s choice? Has your favorite been given the boot yet? Who do you think should go next?