I have a feeling we’ll see a lot of these posts in the next few hours, so I’ll come out with mine. The Top 12 American Idol contestants begin competition tonight. You can see the lot of them right here.

Who do you think will go the furthest? Who will get left behind the fastest? Who will surprise everyone?

(I just noticed something: The Final 12 are divided evenly male/female. Whereas last season the women were far superior to the men, I don’t see that here this year. I think it breaks out a little more evenly this year.)

I think the biggest surprise might be Carmen, Simon Cowell’s pick for Wild Card. She has a country twang to her voice that I’m convinced will help her stand out enough from all the soundalikes that she’ll go a few rounds before getting voted out. She’ll be in the Top 10, but not the Top 5 or 6.

Clay and Kimberley Locke were my early favorites. I think they’re locks to make it into the Top 5, assuming they don’t have a pair of bad performances back-to-back. That’s the only thing that might kill them. Ditto for Josh Gracin. In fact, that’s my top three right now: Clay, Josh, and Kimberley Locke, though not in that order, necessarily.

I don’t see Charles Grigsby getting all that far. Ricky Smith will get through on sheer force of personality, but I think he’s still an early out. Vanessa will be in the Top 10, if only because she stands out from the crowd so much.

I don’t know what to think of Ruben. His voice doesn’t do anything for me, but America voted him through once already. He’s a real wild card in the competition.

Of course, this all depends on people having great performances every week. That’s not going to happen. Someone’s voice is going to crack in the early going and that person will get kicked out for it. Someone’s going to have two mediocre weeks in a row despite their amazing voice, and they’ll be shown the door. That kind of stuff is impossible to predict.

But I feel safe in picking Kimberley L., Clay Aiken, and Joshua Gracin for the Top 3.

And the first three to go, in no particular order: Charles, Carmen, and Julia. I really like Julia, but I have a feeling that one bad performance out of her in the first three weeks will seal her doom. I also think Carmen is the most likely candidate to have an early bad song. I’m tempted to put Corey in that group, but I think the teenagers voting at home will push him through.

So I’ll pick Vanessa, Corey, and Rickey next to go after that, in no particular order.

Then Ruben, Trenyce, and Kimberley (no particular order there).

That leaves Josh, Kimberley L., and Clay Aiken to fight it out in the end. While Kimberley was my early favorite to win it all, I think we’ll see a male American Idol this year. (Can she sing anything OTHER than “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”?) I think it will be Clay to win it all, although I hesitate because it seems like such a momentum thing right now.

I’ll be sure to make fun of myself over the next couple of months for these picks. I’ll keep it honest.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2003 at 1:00 pm and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.