When the show began it was appar­ent that they will be using way more pro­duc­tion this year to really reel in the view­ers. They have so much more “heart­felt” pro­duc­tion that I actu­ally found myself fast­for­ward­ing alot. I feel like the Amer­i­can Idol pro­duc­ers are look­ing for rea­sons to put these kids on cam­era, rather than putting the kids that have appar­ent rea­sons already on cam­era. I don’t know, maybe I’m just over the attempt at a sto­ry­book ending…or maybe the Idol pro­duc­ers are just try­ing to recre­ate a “Car­rie Under­wood” or “Kelly Clark­son” effect.

Over­all, I thought the judg­ing was good. You can tell they were ner­vous to fill in the spots. I can only imag­ine what it would be like to know that mil­lions of peo­ple aren’t just judg­ing YOU but that they are com­par­ing you to the pre­vi­ous judges. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want to be com­pared to Paula Adul…as CooCoo for Cocoa puffs as Paula was, she had like a cult fol­low­ing, put some­one nor­mal in there and they’ll be cater­go­rized as “not nor­mal”.
Last night was the Jer­sey Shore night of audi­tions, tonight they head to New Orleans for another 2 hours audi­tion spe­cial.
Here’s a run­down on the audi­tion­ers we saw get through…via one of my favorite Real­ity Blogs on Yahoo:
Caleb Haw­ley – My favorite male singer of the episode, this soul­ful rocker had Steven drum­ming on his desk and hol­ler­ing up a storm. Caleb’s belty, bluesy take on Eva Cassidy’s “Hal­lelu­jah” (not the over­done Leonard Cohen song–that came later) showed a lot of poten­tial, and really, Caleb is only one David Cook-esque makeover away from total heart­throb hot­ness. Sum­mon in the styl­ists and watch the girlies swoon in no time, I predict..

Ash­ley Sul­li­van – Dur­ing her bio pack­age, this goofy girl openly declared her love for Brit­ney Spears. And to loosely quote Brit­ters, this girl’s got your crazy. A nut­case of Tatiana Del Toro-esque pro­por­tions with a brash Broad­way per­sona and a mis­sion to be the “first show tunes pop star,” Ashley’s man­i­cally bug-eyed, neck-vein-throbbing per­for­mance from “Thor­oughly Mod­ern Mil­lie” was borderline-terrifying…but man, it was darn enter­tain­ing. Two cra­zies like S.Ty and A.Sull on the same TV screen excites me to no end. I doubt she’ll make it past her first Hol­ly­wood Week melt­down, but I look for­ward to drama while it lasts. I’m also pretty sure Vote For The Worst has already picked this chick to be their Sea­son 10 poster­child. With a catch­phrase like “Main­stream pop needs to get with Liza Min­nelli,” how could they not?.

Devyn Rush – Simon Cow­ell was never much of a fan of singing wait­resses, but if he’d stuck around this sea­son, this woman would have served him some hum­ble pie on a plate. Devyn’s scatty, sassy per­for­mance of “God Bless The Child” reminded me a bit of Megan Joy’s promis­ing early audi­tion from Sea­son 8, and it whet­ted all the judges’ appetites for more. “That was deli­cious,” purred Steven. Yes, Devyn also needs a makeover (“Some­one needs to take her shop­ping,” advised Steven), but her voice was one of the tasti­est of the episode. I’m hun­gry to hear more..

Travis Orlando – A nice 16-year-old Bronx boy who spent much of his child­hood liv­ing in shel­ters when his father’s ill­ness ren­dered his fam­ily home­less, Travis is the kind of con­tes­tant peo­ple root for. And I do think this boy with the Bruno Mars-ish good looks and honey-covered vocal cords is one to watch. It seems his years of hard liv­ing have lent him a mature, soul­ful voice that belies his age, and yet dur­ing his audi­tion he demon­strated a plucky spirit, a youth­ful opti­mism not crushed by his tough times. I per­son­ally pre­ferred his ren­di­tion of the Bea­t­les’ “Eleanor Rigby” over his sec­ond song, the done-to-death “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, but regard­less of what this guy sings, I’ve got a feel­ing Amer­ica will eat it up..

Rachel Zevita – A young soprano who made it through in Sea­son 6 before being cut on the first day of Hol­ly­wood Week, lit­tle Rachel is all grown up now. She was a four-eyed nerd five years ago, but this girl cleans up nice, and she’s blos­somed, swan-like, into quite a stun­ner. But has her voice evolved too? Well, Jen­nifer actu­ally remem­bered Rachel’s first appear­ance on the show, and while she was under­whelmed by Rachel’s 2011 audi­tion of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”–aka The Most Over­sung Song In “Idol” His­tory, a song even Cohen him­self doesn’t want to hear anymore–she put Rachel through based on her ear­lier promise. Per­son­ally, I’m glad Rachel got another chance, and hope she stays in Hol­ly­wood a lit­tle longer this time..

Briell Von Hugel – A lovely young lass inspired by her doo-wop dad, this girl has “Idol” writ­ten all over her. Besides deliv­er­ing a sweetly stir­ring per­for­mance of “End­less Love” and exhibit­ing what seems to be a gen­uinely pleas­ant per­son­al­ity, she has the made-for-TV sob story (her singing father got throat can­cer, but pulled through based on his desire to one day see his daugh­ter com­pete on “Idol”) that view­ers will just adore. “I beat can­cer, and she’s going through to Hol­ly­wood,” Daddy Von Hugel declared proudly. Aw..

Rob­bie Rosen – Steven said this 16-year-old kid had the best voice in New Jer­sey after hear­ing him war­ble the Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day.” That might be over­stat­ing things, but with his heartstring-tugging sob story (he was wheelchair-bound as a child), all-American-boy looks, butter-smooth boy-band voice, and what Simon used to call “like­abil­ity fac­tor,” he seems cer­tain to go far..

Melinda Ademi – Yes, yet another sob story. Luck­ily, so far this season’s sad-sack con­tes­tants have the voices to ensure they won’t have to coast by on sym­pa­thy votes. This girl–like Briell, Travis, and Robbie–can also sing. I was root­ing for this Kosovo refugee all through­out her emo­tional bio piece, cheer­ing on her pur­suit of the ulti­mate Amer­i­can dream, and thank­fully her per­for­mance of Ali­cia Keys’s “If I Ain’t Got You” was the pay­off. She didn’t dis­ap­point me..

Tiffany Rios – The obvi­ous Snooki of this com­pe­ti­tion, this loud and proud, hair­sprayed Puerto Rican bomb­shell was eager to show off her, um, assets to the judges. She likened her “non-stick-figure” booty to her idol J.Lo’s, and boldly tore open her shirt in the mid­dle of her self-penned nov­elty song to reveal a star-spangled bikini top. (“Why do you have jujubes on your ooh-ooh-bees?” queried a con­fused but clearly amused Steven.) For­tu­nately, Tiffany but­toned up and dropped the sexy shtick for her sec­ond song, Celine Dion’s “Glory Of Love,” and proved she actu­ally can sing. I just hope that in Hol­ly­wood Week’s group chal­lenge, this crazy lady is in the same ensem­ble with Ash­ley Sul­li­van. And that they wear match­ing star-studded bikini tops. That’d be crazy-awesome..

Vic­to­ria Hug­gins – This painfully pre­cious 16-year-old cutie def­i­nitely lived up to her cud­dly sur­name. A pageanty, princessy Pollyanna with a Minnie-Mouse-on-helium speak­ing voice, Vic­to­ria seri­ously annoyed me…until she sang “Mid­night Train To Geor­gia” with an unex­pected amount of throat­i­ness and matu­rity. Dang! I just hope Steven remem­bers that Vic­to­ria really is only sweet 16 and pos­si­bly never been kissed. His flirt­ing with Vicky was kind of…icky..

And so, there you have it. I’ll wait until “Idol” has a final­ized top 10 before I decide whether or not it can sur­vive all this season’s shakeups…but so far, I’m sur­pris­ingly encour­aged, and I can’t wait to see what sort of tal­ent turns up Thurs­day in audi­tion stop #2, New Orleans..