Despite being one of the hottest contenders to win American Idol, Crystal Bowersox seems to be suffering through the show bigtime.
When she performs her solos she's excellent and gets into it but I'm convinced that there's an added aspect to her performance that she could deliver that she's not accessing or sharing because of being on the show.
Have you noticed how often she hides behind everyone else when it comes to group performances? Like in these grabs from one of the group songs:
It's happened often that I've noticed her withdrawing, or looking as if she's hoping that people she knows won't notice that she's actually on the show.
Over the course of seasons, I've often heard professional and struggling musicians too, saying that they wouldn't enter a show like AI or Idols because of them being much more about the reality TV aspect than the music.
You'd think that the show would be dominated by musicians who are struggling to make a living through music and yet it often has a majority of contestants who make their living in other ways.
My first impression was that that this is how Crystal feels: that she doesn't really want musician friends (possibly hippy types) to think that she's changed or become a "marketed, pulp product" by entering a reality show; and that she's only doing it because of her son - what she said about wanting to give him a better life.
Then, last week, she was so cut up by the eliminations it felt as if she could announce her withdrawal from the show afterwards. I know contestants often get upset seeing their friends leave but she was
finished, as if she was barely managing to make it through to the end.
In a nutshell: I think she's going through a tortured combo of both, all wrapped in the fear of being too exposed or hurt through the show if she puts herself out there too boldly or exposes herself too fully.
Everyone knows how brutal reality shows can be and she may be afraid of being too crushed as a result. The trouble is the results are all so beyond the contestants' control that if they truly, truly,
truly let go, reveal themselves completely and embrace it 500%, they could end up a 500% mess.
I reckon that if this is what's happening she should let go of it all, punch any fear of it out of the stadium and see things such as the eliminations as a superficial, unimportant part of things - if she did, I'm convinced she'd take her performance to a dimension that will be beyond-words-wow.
PS: Now that there are fewer contestants, the show starts at 16h00 on M-Net on Sundays. 16h00 - 18h00: the performances; with the results at 18h00.