It was the moment millions of households had been waiting for. The moment when every Joe the Plumber and Jane Doe gets to play judge with the lives of people who are strangely certain that they are meant to be pop stars. It’s American Idol and the more things change–the addition of a judge–the more things stay the same–most of the contestants still can’t sing. So with last night’s season premiere there were the usual barrage of contestants who flew from the other side of the country to wow the judges with their vocal prowess–or lack thereof.
Some of my favorite failures from last night: Michael Gurr who sung until he nearly puked; Elijah the baritone who clearly didn’t know what to do with his deep range–but he was cute; and Sexual Chocolate who might have known how to sing but seemed to be more concerned about getting the Mustang his mom promised him if he didn’t make it to Hollywood.
But let’s fast-forward to the good stuff–and when I say good, I’m talking about the most talked about part of the show, a girl who shall only be known as Bikini Girl because I don’t think she deserves a name otherwise. Is this statement cruel? Absolutely. Does she deserve it? I think so. So here’s the story.

Bikini Girl decided that she would don a bikini to the audition because she figured it would make her stand out. The bikini would make her standout–not her voice, but this itsy bitsy teeny weeny un-polka-dotted bikini. Bikini Girl walks into the audition and wows Simon and Randy before she even opens her mouth. How could she do that you say? Well it starts with the bikini, then new judge Kara DioGuardi has Bikini Girl do a turn-around so that the judges and the world can check out her tiny assets and then she sings a sobering version of Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love.” Her voice was tolerable at best, but Randy and Simon were blinded by her top and bottom. To make matters worse, instead of DioGuardi helping Bikini Girl understand the virtues of talent over brazen sexuality, she tries to outsing Bikini Girl. This only made her look immature and catty. Yet after all of this–including Bikini Girl telling DioGuardi that her demonstration wasn’t that great–Bikini Girl still got the ticket to Hollywood and all the free press she’ll ever need. (After all, I did take more than a few words to wax poetic about her lack of talent.)

But not to leave things on a bad note there are some brilliant voices that presented themselves in last night’s premiere. Family-less Deanna Brown, home horror movie creator Cody Sheldon, cute as a button Arianna Afsar, oil rigger Michael Sarver, stiff as a board J.B. Ahfua and the classically-trained, nearly blind Scott Douglas MacIntyre. Lest I be remiss, MacIntyre does have an amazing story of being nearly blind but breaking the boundaries of that disability by going on to learn and play several musical instruments, start and graduate from college by 19 and be profiled by several mainstream media outlets. He is a testament that disabilities does not define a person. So don’t be tempted to feel pity for him in his current state, he is living his life just as we all should be–without limit.
So these are the ones to watch this season and if you might, pray that our friend Bikini Girl gets some wits about herself, puts some clothes on and cashes her reality check to realize that she isn’t as great as she thinks. In the words of the illustrious Miranda Priestly, “That’s all.”