Due to the limited viewership, no elimination on “The X Factor,” regardless of the shock value, is going to elicit the volume of complaints that emerge when the voters “get it wrong” on “American Idol.”
But that does not mean the outcry will be anything less vicious. Following Drew’s surprise elimination last week, which saw the one-time frontrunner exit the competition in sixth place, fan frustration reached a boiling point, with fans Tweeting hostile remarks at Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger, the judges who instead chose to save Marcus Canty in last week’s “sing for survival.”
Interestingly, Drew herself told Headline Planet that she fully expected the judges to vote as they did. Aware that she had not shown versatility on the show, Drew completely understood the judges’ frustration and no expectation of getting their save, even though Canty had also been in the bottom three the prior week.
“I knew I wasn’t going through,” Drew confirmed to Headline Planet in a media conference call last week. “I could see it in the judges’ faces and the way they were looking at me. I haven’t been showing [versatility], so I didn’t really expect the judges to want to save me after week after week they told me to do something and Simon (her mentor) insisted on me doing the same thing again and again.”
Drew’s apparent aversion to trying anything outside of her slow, Christina Perri/A Fine Frenzy style had long been a talking point among “X Factor” fans. On the one hand, she had delivered stunning performances in the style, including a haunting rendition of “Flashdance…What a Feeling” and “Billie Jean,” her most recent (and final) performance. This genre clearly seemed to be her niche and her best chance at superstardom, so why change that? If rapper Astro felt no pressure to perform a country song, should Drew have felt compelled to follow Paula Abdul’s advice of trying a fun Avril Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson number?
On the other hand, her monotonous commitment to the style was particularly glaring given some of the recent themes. The rock and Michael Jackson themes clearly presented opportunities for fun, uptempo numbers; both times, Drew went the somber, slow route. Her fans might have appreciated it (though obviously not enough to push her through this past week), but it is hard to fault the judges for resenting the apparent stubbornness.
As it turns out, the debate was something of a moot point.
Simon Cowell, who defended the decision to perform “Billie Jean” from a stationary chair after Drew’s actual number, accepted blame for her elimination, noting he should have tried something different. If one expected Drew to excuse Simon’s advice on the grounds that she, too, only wanted to perform songs in her niche style, one would have been caught off-guard by her comments on the conference call.
Drew, as it turns out, is not only understanding of the judges’ reaction to her monotony–she agrees with it. The young singer confirmed to Headline Planet that she originally wanted to perform an uptempo song for Michael Jackson week and was talked out of it by her mentor.
“Honestly, I was planning on doing an upbeat song [last] week,” noted Drew. “I’ve been trying to get my songs to be upbeat, [but] Simon wanted them to be slow and I trusted him in that.
“He was my mentor, but I wanted to do something upbeat for a while.”
Drew clarified that she does not blame Simon, but her rationale was a bit back-handed. Drew did not, in fact, justify Simon’s decisionmaking–she simply feels that she could have been more definitive and forceful in disagreeing with his ideas.
“I don’t believe it’s all Simon’s fault,” explained Drew. “He did want me to do a slow song and he very much enforced me to [sing “Billie Jean” from the chair], but I still have the overall decision and I didn’t fight for exactly what I should have.”
Drew has no specific regrets over the songs she performed, but she was quite clear in her agreement that she could have more notably changed things throughout the competition. And in a note that might surprise some of her fans, she called “Just a Dream”–probably the most active of her performances–her favorite number on the show.
Drew, it seems, was thus sticking to a vision developed by her mentor. She was not trying to make a slow, dark vocal style work no matter what the nature of the theme.
In that sense, if fans are going to escalate to directing angry, hostile, violent at the judges responsible for Drew’s elimination, wouldn’t it be more sensible to criticize Simon, who Drew explains might have led her down a mistaken path, than Nicole and Paula, who she feels were justified in their resentment?