Ricky Muscat is out of Australian Idol 2006 and it couldn’t have come a moment too soon. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it was a mistake from everyone involved that he managed to make it into the final 12 contestants.

As I’ve pointed out previously, I don’t like Ricky Muscat as a performer. I didn’t like him at the start, I didn’t like him in the middle and I sure didn’t like him towards the end. Each time Ricky performed, all I heard was the same stuff each week. It didn’t seem to matter what genre he sang, I never connected with it – which is a shame as I’d consider that a pretty big part of a lot of music.

It would seem to me that the judges are putting contestants through to a certain stage based on merit; which is fair. Unfortunately, as soon as the voting begins – Australian Idol becomes a popularity contest rather than a singing contest. Now don’t get me wrong, being popular is part of being a successful musician as without the popularity, you won’t sell anywhere near enough records. The problem is, often a contestants popularity isn’t based on their singing ability – its based on them being hot, sexy or cute.

I don’t have the silver bullet solution for the Australian Idol voting issues, however if the Australian Idol producers were serious about finding talented musicians and not fixated on making money; they would limit the number of votes a unique phone number can produce per voting session.

A vote is a vote, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote more than once as it just allows people to skew the statistics. Maybe it hasn’t occurred to them that you aren’t actually allowed to vote more than once in a federal election and that there is a reason for it?

Following on from a suggestion by Andrew, below is my priority ranked view of the current crop of Australian Idol 2006 contestants.

Bobby Flynn

Bobby Flynn, there is so much to say about him; but he has to be one of the single most unique artists I’ve heard in a long time. I absolutely love his weird, eclectic singing style – its unpredictable and possibly raw. Whatever it is, I hope like hell he doesn’t change and one of the major labels picks him up and just encourages him to do his thing because its fresh, different, unique and awesome.

Lavina Williams

Lavina, what an incredible voice. I’d go as far to say that Lavina’s voice is of a higher quality than her older sisters. I think throughout the show, Lavina has delivered some amazing performances which show cases her amazing power and it is a damn shame she was voted out of Australian Idol so early.

Jessica Mauboy

Jessica has a fabulous voice with a great range, it seems effortless for her to deliver great vocals. I personally think she also have excellent enunciation when she sings as well; which isn’t always the case. After getting hit pretty hard by Kyle, she really bounced back and stepped up to the plate. I always seem to be reminding myself that she is so young, she’ll be an impressive force in the coming years.

Damien Leith

Damien has a smooth strong voice with an incredible falsetto. Damien’s falsetto is up there with the best of them; it certainly isn’t out of place in my eyes to list him beside someone like Darren Hayes and that in itself is an accomplishment. The great thing about Damien is that he doesn’t have to always sing high, he has a great mid-range voice as well, which since his high is so high, a superb range.

Chris Murphy

Chris has a great rock voice, its rough and definitely not pretty but the course tones match well when he digs in. I think he needs the support of Australia simply because we aren’t producing anywhere near enough rock artists anymore. Thankfully with the recent resurgence of Australian Rock via bands such as Jet; Chris won’t be alone if Australia lends him a little support.

Lisa Mitchell

Lisa is quite young but is already establishing her own unique singing style, I’d put it somewhere between a Missy Higgins and an Avril Lavigne. I like the fact that she is at home with her guitar and that really does suit her style of singing; which was evident by the constant criticism from Mark about her walking or strolling without purpose on the stage. I think in the years to come, it’d be nice to see Lisa Mitchell find her place in the Australian or great music scene.

Guy Mutton

Guy “Mutto” Mutton, quite a unique character. I thought he had something, I just don’t know what that something was. He delivered quite a few solid performances while he was on the show but I’m not confident that his singing style would be enough to sell records; which is the name of the game.

Klancie Keough

Klancie Keough had a great voice singing within her comfort zone, unfortunately for her Australian Idol demands that contestants sing various genre. Klancie by no means did a horrible job of singing outside of her preferred country style but her other performances weren’t quite as strong and in the end I think it caught up with her.

Dean Geyer

Dean has a pretty solid voice and has been fantastic throughout Australian Idol at actioning the judges criticism and comments each week. Unfortunately Dean doesn’t seem to have what it takes to make me pay attention when he is singing, he isn’t delivering anything to really catch my attention. At the moment, I would say he is being voted through by the teenybopper factor though in the future his delivery might change and I’d connect with his performances more.

Joseph Gatehau

Just didn’t do a thing for me at all, unfortunately I found it plain old boring.

Reigan Derry

Reigan didn’t really do a lot for me. I put Reigan into a similar category to Ricky Muscat, nice voice but I found her kind of boring to watch and listen to. In her case, I don’t think she brings anything to the table that hasn’t been done before; especially since she doesn’t have the versatility of some of the other performers.

Ricky Muscat

I personally find Ricky Muscat very boring to listen to; what frustrates me is that I don’t quite know why. He has a reasonable voice but I just find it uninteresting, I never seem to find any sort of connection with either what he is singing or his singing style. I’m surprised he has managed to get through this far in Australian Idol, though I think that can be attributed to the teenybopper factor.

Bobby Flynn, what’s there to say – he is the most unique individual to ever grace the Australian Idol stage. From the first audition at the very start of Australian Idol, Bobby Flynn caught my attention – he was just so different to all the other contestants. There were lots of talented people that were going through the audition process, however most of them were just a newer version of someone that had been there before. Bobby Flynn, he hadn’t been there, nor had someone been on the show before him that was even a little bit similar – he was a diamond in the rough.

Bobby has received much praise throughout the entire Australian Idol show this year, having the judges constantly amazed by his unexpected and unique performances. They’ve told him that they don’t know what he is doing but to just keep on doing it and what ever he does, absolutely don’t change. This is Australian Idol though, heaven forbid that a truly unique artist make it through to the end of the show. Tonight Bobby Flynn was voted out of Australian Idol, up against Lisa and Ricky. I still don’t know how Ricky is in the show, as far as I’m concerned he is being voted through by the teenie-boppers who are never going to buy an album from the contestants.

I thought it was shocking when Lavina Williams was voted, this is appalling. Thankfully, Andrew G voiced his opinion and Bobby Flynn is going to perform on the original content show on Tuesday night. I have no idea what he is going to perform but I know that its going to be amazing and the audience are going to be behind him all the way.

In an amazing turn of events, Lavina Williams was voted out of Australian Idol 2006 tonight. Lavina Williams is the older sister of Emily Williams, who was the runner up in the 2005 series of Australian Idol. Lavina showcases, what is now a recognised high power singing style which took her older sister to the final two last year. Throughout the 2006 series of Australian Idol, Lavina has been a bright and shining star; delivering consistently high quality performances.

Lavina being voted out of Australian Idol tonight drives home, what I would consider an irrefutable fact; the voting strategy which the Australian Idol show implements is fatally flawed. If you look back through the years, there have been mistakes year after year:

• 2005: Anne Robertson was voted out in the final six, when it should have been her and Emily Williams in the final.
• 2004: Ricki-Lee Coulter was dropped in the final seven.

To prove the point a little more, in the 2004 series of Australian Idol the winner Casey Donovan struggled to sell a record. How is it that the ‘Australian Idol’ — someone who received millions of votes struggles to sell a single? Hang on, what if the voting system was broken. What if all the people voting aren’t the people that are going to actually buy the records and they are voting for other reasons? Stay with me here, what if a significant number of the votes for the Australian Idols are made up of 16 and under teenagers? Sure, they’ll spend $0.50c to send an SMS – I seriously doubt that they’d spend the $25 on the actual album though.

I’m disappointed to see Lavina Williams go out of the competition tonight, I think there were far more deserving contestants who should have had that fate.