I have never watched any of the performances from this Season, but hopefully there'll be some decent performances.
I'm going to start from the top 12 round, as that's when the public were allowed to start voting.
My rankings.
Top 12 - American Anthems:
1. Josh Krajcik - Jar Of Hearts
2. Lakoda Rayne - Landslide
3. Melanie Amaro - Desperado
4. LeRoy Bell - I'm Already There
5. Chris Rene - Superstar - It was an interesting performance, despite imo being flawed.
6. Stacy Francis - Up To The Mountain
7. Marcus Canty - Nothing On You/Every Little Step - I would say that we start to take a considerable drop in quality from my personal top 6 on the night.
8. Rachel Crow - Walking On Sunshine
9. Drew - Just A Dream
10. InTENsity - Kids In America/Party Rock Anthem
11. The Stereo Hogzz - Rhythm Nation
12. Astro - Hip Hop Hooray/Get Ur Freak On - I was torn on who to place bottom between Astro and The Stereo Hogzz, but having a 15 year old rapping a PG version of Get Ur Freak On is just wrong on quite a few obvious levels.
Top 12 - Sing-Off:
1. InTENsity - My Life Would Suck Without You
2. The Stereo Hogzz - Emotion
Top 11 - Songs From Movies:
1. LeRoy Bell - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
2. Astro - Lose Yourself
3. Melanie Amaro - Man In The Mirror
4. Lakoda Rayne - Somebody Like You
5. Rachel Crow - I'd Rather Go Blind
6. Josh Krajcik - With A Little Help From My Friends
7. Chris Rene - Gangsta's Paradise
8. Stacy Francis - Queen Of The Night
9. Drew - Fix You - The Show was trying way too hard to make Drew come across like Janet Devlin or Diana Vickers.
10. The Stereo Hogzz - Ain't No Other Man
11. Marcus Canty - I'm Going Down - The performance was really forgettable imo.
Top 11 - Sing-Off:
1. Lakoda Rayne - No Air - It weren't perfect imo, but they're vocally considerably ahead of Stereo Hogzz in my view.
2. The Stereo Hogzz - You Are Not Alone - Over warbling harmed their performances imo.
Top 10 - "Rock":
1. LeRoy Bell - We've Got Tonite - Imo LeRoy knows how to use his voice the best, at least to my ears anyway.
2. Lakoda Rayne - Your Love/Go Your Own Way
3. Melanie Amaro - Everybody Hurts - Some of the notes towards the end were slightly oversung for my taste, but she is a strong vocalist in the competition.
4. Josh Krajcik - The Pretender - Josh has a good voice, but he did have issues with letting the Music drown his voice out during portions of the song.
5. Stacy Francis - It's All Coming Back To Me Now
6. Rachel Crow - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
7. Drew - With Or Without You - The cloning of Diana Vickers continues.
8. Chris Rene - No Woman No Cry/Everything's Gonna Be Alright - What a "Rock" mashup.
9. Marcus Canty - Piece Of My Heart
Another "Rock" number.
10. Astro - I'll Be Missing You - There's nothing quite so special as having Astro rapping about "loving Hip Hop, and wanting to bring it back" on Rock night.
Top 10 - Sing-Off:
1. Astro - Never Can Say Goodbye - He did okay I think.
2. Stacy Francis - Amazing Grace - Definitely some pitching issues in her sing-off performance imo.
Top 9 - Giving Thanks:
1. Astro - Show Me What You Got
2. Drew - Skyscraper
3. Josh Krajcik - Wild Horses - A good performance, but the mumbling into the mic that he sometimes does can be annoying.
4. LeRoy Bell - Angel
5. Lakoda Rayne - You Belong With Me
6. Chris Rene - Let It Be/Young Homie
7. Melanie Amaro - The World's Greatest
8. Rachel Crow - I Believe
9. Marcus Canty - A Song For Mama
Top 9 - Sing-Off:
1. LeRoy Bell - Don't Let Me Down
2. Marcus Canty - You Lost Me
Top 7 - Michael Jackson:
1. Melanie Amaro - Earth Song
2. Chris Rene - I'll Be There - A pleasant surprise.
3. Drew - Billie Jean
4. Marcus Canty - P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing)
5. Josh Krajcik - Dirty Diana
6. Astro - Black Or White
7. Rachel Crow - Can You Feel It
Top 7 - Sing-Off:
1. Drew - Listen To Your Heart
2. Marcus Canty - Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)
Top 5 Round 1:
1. Chris Rene - Live Your Life - Easily the most catchy performance of the round imo.
2. Marcus Canty - Ain't Nobody
3. Josh Krajcik - We Found Love
4. Melanie Amaro - Someone Like You
5. Rachel Crow - Nothin On You
Top 5 Round 2:
1. Chris Rene - Where Do We Go From Here
2. Melanie Amaro - When You Believe
3. Josh Krajcik - Something
4. Marcus Canty - A Song For You - He has been improving over the last few performances that I've heard tbf.
5. Rachel Crow - Music And Me
Top 5 - Sing-Off:
1. Rachel Crow - I'd Rather Go Blind
2. Marcus Canty - I'm Going Down
Top 4 Round 1:
1. Melanie Amaro - Hero
2. Chris Rene - Fly
3. Josh Krajcik - Come Together
4. Marcus Canty - I'll Make Love To You
Top 4 Round 2:
1. Melanie Amaro - Feeling Good - Tbf, the note that she hits towards the end of the song shows that she deserved to win the Season imo, absolutely crazy that she didn't even strain to hit the note.
2. Josh Krajcik - Hallelujah - Definitely Josh's best performance on the night imo.
3. Chris Rene - No One
4. Marcus Canty - Careless Whisper
The Final - Round 1:
1. Chris Rene - Complicated
2. Josh Krajcik - Uninvited - I really like the song, but Josh again had projection issues when singing with Alanis Morissette imo.
3. Melanie Amaro - I Believe I Can Fly - Melanie just didn't sing this very well imo.
The Final - Round 2:
1. Chris Rene - Young Homie
2. Melanie Amaro - Listen
3. Josh Krajcik - At Last
The Final - Round 3:
1. Melanie Amaro - All I Want For Christmas Is You
2. Josh Krajcik - Please Come Home For Christmas
3. Chris Rene - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
And that's it for Season 1 of TXF USA.
RIP to a contestant that got eliminated at the first Live Show/top 17 round, her name was Simone Battle and she committed suicide on September 5th 2014.
We're only about a week away from it being ten years since she died, and I was thinking about ending this post with one of her songs, to celebrate what she contributed to the Music Industry in such a short space of time.