American Idol Season 13 Debut

We decided to give American Idol Season 13 a whirl this year. We were fans of Jennifer Lopez as an Idol judge. We were fans of Harry Connick Jr. as an Idol mentor and think he’ll be a great judge. Because we didn’t watch last year, Keith Urban is the “new’ judge to us, but hey dawg, as long as we don’t have to listen to Randy Jackson’s bull as a judge, it’s all good. (Yeah, we know he’s mentoring).

The overall theme in the first part of the debut was how the contestants were awed by Jenny from the Block. Even Connick said he was impressed with the rocks that she’s got, but he doesn’t seem to be too impressed with the assessments made by J-Lo and Keith Urban. There was one girl from Georgia, near the end of the show, who sang “Up to the Mountain” in her audition. Runs, licks all over the place and Connick wanted to say something about it but J-Lo drowned him out. The girl, Madelyn Patterson, said she wanted to hear what he had to say but he said he would tell her in Hollywood (assuming he still needs to, which we hope he doesn’t). Connick had the tape played back for Lopez and Urban, to prove that they made little approving sounds at the first sign of a lick or a run.

Highly fitting as it may be for Connick to come off as the guy who knows a good singer when he sees one, we hope they don’t overdo it. And that goes for the nobody knows who he is jokes, too.

That ray of hope came from Pakistan-born Texan Munfarid Zaidi who is such a huge Harry Connick fan, he said: “”I read your Wikipedia page every day before going to sleep.” Fast on the draw, Keith Urban quipped, “Oh, so he’s the one who’s been reading it!” Connick said he would rock Munfarid in his arms like a baby if he liked the audition. And he did. He even carried the 19-year-old (who looked like he was light as a feather) to the door in his arms, prompting Seacrest to inquire what all that was about. “Cause I love him,” Zaidi replied.

Connick also has a disapproving daddy side, scaring one contestant into thinking she wasn’t getting a ticket when he said “I say no,” then amended that to be about a tattoo rather than singing talent. A 15-year-old, Morgan Deplitch, was chided over her “Paris (Ooh La La)” song choice. Connick stressed the importance of selecting age-appropriate songs, pointing out: “hearing you sing about shaving me smooth really was creeping me out.” (Not quite as much as Connick creeped us out when he said he was taking Munfarid back to his hotel, we bet).

In addition to those three, golden tickets went to (in alphabetical order by first name):

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