Aaron Kelly not only has ears, he’s got eyes — he’s a photography buff. He also got a word of encouragement from Simon after last week’s show. “That made my night,” he says.
But if Andrew Garcia’s not a soul singer, Aaron Kelly really isn’t. And he’s trying to do The Temptations’ My Girl. It’s not a bad version, kind of country — imagine Rascal Flatts’ Gary LeVox as a teenager trying to sing the song. It’ll probably be enough to keep him in the competition, but this is not at all what he needs to be doing — especially that weird little dentist-drill falsetto. And he doesn’t have the lung development yet to hold those notes at the end. He runs out of breath, and it’s sounds really rough.
Still, Randy says, it was 200 percent better than last week, even though it had plenty of problems.
Ellen agrees that he has more confidence. “The song was, I think, a little forgettable. … I wish there was a different song that you chose.”
Kara says he’s consistent and has control “for someone your age.”
They’re praising him with faint damns — they want to say nice things about Aaron, but they know it just wasn’t good enough to warrant them. Simon’s more straightforward. “What you’ve got to work out, at your age, what kind of artist you want to be. … We could have heard that audition 15 years ago, 20 years ago. … You’ve got to come on here, week after week, tell us, tell America, this is the kind of artist I want to be.”
Ryan asks Aaron if he likes Justin Bieber, and Aaron makes what could be a fatal mistake — he doesn’t respond. There are probably a million or two Justin Bieber fangirls watching this show right now, looking for an excuse to vote for Aaron (over, say, Tim Urban). And he just gave them a good reason to look for another favorite.
Aaron Kelly may have lost a lot of votes for trying to distance himself from Justin Bieber. They are very much alike and have the same fan base. They are both 16 and both have young musical backgrounds. Aaron’s popularity is also growing on Twitter. I found a clip of him when he was 13 performing in Nashville in 2007.
So who do you prefer? Aaron or Justin?
