Producers promised
us big shake-ups for Hollywood Week – apparently viewers hate the middle rounds
(I know I can’t stand semi-finals) – which thus far has translated to a new
interstitial “Airport Round.” Basically the kids got off their planes at
Hollywood and were taken to an airplane hangar, where 50 of them were picked
out as on-the-bubble contestants and asked to essentially sing for their lives.

This segment flew
by awfully quickly, and it was impossible to keep track of all the contestants.
A few of the notable Airport Round performancs:

-Johnny Newcomb
auditioned in Salt Lake and was given a hard time by Harry Connick
Jr. for putting on an affectation. This time he did “Pumped Up
Kicks” by Foster the People. It was a low-key vocal and the performance lacked
energy and star power.

-Ali Jane
Henderson from Atlanta auditions sang beautifully on a cool version of Britney
Spears’ “Toxic.” She sounded like a straight-up recording.

-Caitlin Johnson
did a terrible version of “Only Girl in the World” that had serious pitch
problems. Harry literally said, “I don’t know what we ever saw in her.” Poor
Caitlin admitted to have terrible stage fright.

-I thought Adam
Roth, my beautiful furry sound healer, blew it with his version of Imagine
Dragons’ “Radioactive,” which was a mess vocally and the judges hated the piano
playing. Jennifer Lopez fought hard for him, which I respect.

-Tristen Langley
is Nikki McKibben’s kid, and he auditioned in Austin.
We only got a little bit of his singing but the judges seemed thoroughly
unimpressed.

-Morgan Deplitch did Sara Bareilles’
“Brave” and it was absolutely terrible. I’ve heard better in karaoke bars. She megachoked, and she knew it.

-Neco Starr did Bruno Mars’ “Gorillas,” and he IS good but
there’s something about him that seems so fake and forced to me.

-KhristianD’avis has a decent r’n’b voice but, as Jennifer Lopez pointed out, she lacked
flow. One of the other judges said that she “is in love with her own voice.”
She also got demerits for those hideous Bieber pants.

After the 50
bubble singers performed they were split into two groups and put on two busses.
One was going to the hotel and on to the next rounds. The other was headed to
the airport to send the kids straight home — and the contestants purportedly
had no idea which bus was which. If they really didn’t tell the contestants
where they were headed, that is one of the meanest things I have ever seen on
this show. Not even Simon would have pulled such a vicious mindfuck.
It was pretty obvious that Bus 1 was the cut group, which had 30 contestants.
The show didn’t bother to identify them, but it seemed like Tristen was among
them. You know that McKibben was PISSED.

The next round was
the standard knockout round. Singers were placed in lines and sang one by one,
and the judges kept and cut who they pleased. There were literally dozens of
contestants paraded across the screen – impossible to keep track of them all.
Below are the ones that caught my attention. However, I want to say, on the
whole: this is an EXCEPTIONALLY talented group of musicians. Best crop we’ve
seen on this show in seasons, I truly believe that. Of course, both the judges
and America could totally bollox this up before we get to finals. So…

-Majesty York is
so lovely. She did “1234” by Feist and absolutely
nailed it, and showed off more power than I expected from her. She’s so
wonderful! And I love her style.

-Spencer Lloyd did
“Say Something” and did a solid job of it. He can play piano, too. And he’s so
pretty. The girls are going to devour this kid. Let me put it this way: he was
already trending on Twitter last night.

-Austin Wolfe did
not impress me terribly in her initial audition, but she did a very nice job
with “Take It All” by Adele. And normally I hate when kids try Adele on this
show.

-Bria Anai has a wonderful voice but she overdoes it. She needs
to learn how to pull back.

-Selena Moreno was
like a freight train plowing through some song I didn’t recognize, and she was
singing in like five different keys. Her voice cracked in the midst of a line.
She was cut, as was country girl Lauren Ogburn, who
never should have gotten this far to begin with.

-Sam Woolf, 17,
did a solid job with “Waiting for the World to Change.” He’s got a really great-sounding
voice, but he has to work on his presence. He was staring at his guitar the
whole time.

-Keri Lynn Roche
is a spectacular singer and I would love to hear her sing more.

-C.J. Harris did
“Trouble” and he was much better than his initial audition. He’s a very
evocative singer. I was unimpressed with him the first time I saw him, but he
totally changed my opinion this round.

-Alex Preston came
out did some funky-ass guitar work before going into an awesome
singer-songwriter version of Will.i.am and Britney’s “Scream and Shout.” He’s
amazing! I love him.

-Kenzie Hall did a
cool version of “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and broke out into a great rap
section. She is so awesome and I’m in love with her.

-BristonMaroney did Lorde’s “Royals” and I HATED it. He is so affected and
ridiculous sounding. I don’t get him at all. NOBODY REALLY SINGS LIKE THAT.

-Dexter Roberts can
really sing and play. He’s a good ol’ boy, but he’s
also a good ol’ singer.

-Casey Thrasher is
getting pushed so hard by this show, and I don’t really get why. He’s totally
fine. A decent singer, a good guitar player, very old-school
country. But there are MUCH better singers on this season.

-Briana Oakley has
been trying out for this show for years. She has the goods, although I don’t
think she has what it takes to win. I notice that she tends to be involved in
drama during group rounds, and that happened again tonight.

-Keith London did
a ballsy song choice in Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy.”
The singing was really good. The judges admitted that they talked through the
entire thing because they found the song choice so odd, and Keith sang another
song, this time” Same Love.” I feel like Keith was trying to send a deliberate
message with those song choices and the judges were being disrespectful.

-Jena Asciutto grabbed my attention. She has a very mature
sounding voice for a 17-year-old. She was so good that Keith Urban wanted to
download her song.

A bunch of people
got cut, but not really anyone surprising. The judges suggested they still had
100 contestants going into group round, and that they’d have to cut half of
them. We got the beginnings of the group-round drama – and there was plenty of
drama – and the actual performances will be tonight. But y’all, I am TORN,
because the Olympics start tonight and there is a new team ice-skating competition.
TEAM ICE-SKATING! That’s even more dramatic than group rounds…

This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2014.