I got a text yesterday that today was my day to post something intelligent that people outside my immediate family would be excited to read. I haven’t been in a store when it got held up at gunpoint lately, so unless I wanted to go looking for danger, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to come up with anything ground-breaking. When I get bored or want to procrastinate, I often get lost in watching old American Idol or Voice auditions and performances.

While I didn’t think a ton of people would really be excited to read that, I reckoned that it would be fun for me at least to get all these videos in one place so I could go back and click on the links the next time I wanted to impress a lady with my vast knowledge of singing competitions.

Then I saw a tweet coming back from work yesterday from a friend in Nashville, who runs ExperienceNash.com, linking to something Eric Church said that appeared to ruffle some feathers. Mr. Church went on a little rant to Rolling Stone that seemed to indicate he wasn’t a fan of reality singing competitions. Actually, it said pretty much exactly that and more.

I can understand where Eric is coming from on two fronts: 1) He is already positioning himself as a rebel. Might as well push that more and appeal to that audience. 2) I’d kinda be pissed too, like if I was Brantley Gilbert and lost to Scotty McCreery for ‘Best New Artist’ at the recent ACM Awards. Gilbert wrote “My Kinda Party” and “Dirt Road Anthem” for Jason Aldean and released “Country Must Be Country Wide” himself. McCreery did a great job on Idol, but really?

Eric issued an apology last night. It fit right in line with Point #2. Some artists that got their start in these competitions totally enjoy their fame. With that I mean folks like Miranda and Carrie. Artists that come out of these things shouldn’t just be ordained the next Garth, George or Reba right off the bat though.

Without further adeau, here are some of my favorite country performances from The Voice, American Idol and Nashville Star.

• “Greyhound Bound For Nowhere”-Miranda Lambert-Nashville Star–-A great song that Miranda wrote with her dad.  This was season one of Star. Miranda finished 3rd in the competition which Buddy Jewell won. Mr. Miranda, Blake Shelton, would eventually be a host in the 5th season of show.
• “Real Good Man”-Chris Young-Nashville Star—Chris would go on to win Season 4 of the show. He has had 5 #1’s on the country chart since then, making him and Miranda the two most successful alums of the show.
• On a side note, season 5 of Star had some great talent, but I couldn’t find their show performances. Check out this song from Zac Hacker, who finished 2nd that season to his sister, Angela. I was able to find “Skinny Dippin'” by Whitney Duncan, who just recently had a song on the soundtrack for the Footloose remake.
• “You’ll Think of Me”-Casey James-American Idol– A great cover of the Keith Urban song.
• There have been some great duets like this one

• I’m also a fan of this one from Kris Allen and Keith Urban and this one from Colton Dixon and Skylar Laine they did this season on Idol
• Speaking of Kris Allen, the Season 8 Idol winner, check out his version of “Man in the Mirror”. Not country, but great.

While we are already off the beaten path with that one, check out this amazing cover of ‘Rolling in the Deep” by David Cook, the Kansas City boy who won Season 7 of Idol

There have been some great country performances this season between Idol and The Voice too:

• ‘Folsom Prison Blues”-Jamie Lono-Voice
• “Jesus Take The Wheel”-Hollie Cavanagh-Idol  also “The Climb”
• “She’s Country”-RaeLynn-Voice

In doing research for this, I ran across video from Skylar Laine, who is on this season of Idol. This girl alone will get me to watch the show.  A great voice. It’s too bad she’s only 18 or I’d be more smitten with her than I was with Nicolle Gaylon after watching this. Check out her version of “Born This Way”.  It’s like Lady Miranda or something.

Also check her out on “Gunpowder and Lead” and “Tattoos on this Town”

This post really wouldn’t be complete without audition videos.  Check out Lauren Alaina, Scotty McCreery, Kellie Pickler and possibly the biggest success story from this genre, Carrie Underwood.

Did I miss some? Are these awful and I actually have no musical taste whatsoever?

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