American Song Contest: The Live Qualifiers, Part 2

March 28, 2022 4:12 PM - Season 1, Episode 2

The qualifiers continue with the reveal of which three acts from the premiere are moving on to the semifinals; the next batch of 11 artists take the stage with original music to compete to win the country's vote for best hit song.

Per wikipedia, tonight's contestants are:

Kansas - Broderick Jones (ft. Calio) -"Tell Me"
Kentucky - Jordan Smith - "Sparrow"
Maine - King Kyote - "Get Out Alive"
Montana - Jonah Prill - "Fire It Up"
Nebraska - Jocelyn - "Never Alone"
New York - Enisa - “Green Light”
North Dakota - Chloe Fredericks - "Can't Make You Love Me"
Ohio - Macy Gray (ft. The California Jet Club and Maino) - "Every Night"
Oregon - courtship. - "Million Dollar Smoothies"
U.S. Virgin Islands - Cruz Rock - "Celebrando"
Virginia - Almira Zaky - "Over You"

The YouTube playlist has been updated with tonight's songs.

posted by the primroses were over (5 comments total)

I learned my lesson last week, and I'm going to watch this earlier in the evening tomorrow, but the post is up if other people have timelier thoughts!
posted by the primroses were over at 4:57 PM on March 28, 2022

At the end of the first episode, it was revealed that the jury's highest ranked entry was Rhode Island's Hueston, who got an automatic pass to the semifinals.

At the beginning of this episode, the next 3 highest ranking contestants according to the jury were revealed to be Oklahoma's AleXa, Arkansas' Kelsey Lamb, and Puerto Rico's Christian Pagán. Once the popular vote was included, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico made it through, but Arkansas was knocked off by Connecticut's Michael Bolton. Bolton had been ranked 4th by the jury.

Also, in addition to the announced semifinalists, 2 songs from all the qualifying rounds will be brought back for the semifinals based on streaming popularity, or something. I don't care enough to investigate this further than the explanation Kelly Clarkson gave at the end of this week's semifinalist reveal.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:34 PM on March 29, 2022

I thought this week's crop of songs were way better than last week's. Maybe I was just in a more receptive mood?

Anyway, this week's jury selection that automatically advances to the semifinals is Kentucky's Jordan Smith. (I am so far not in agreement with the jury, but I did like this song much better than the jury selection last week. Onwards and upwards!)

I was happy to see Macy Gray, and liked her song, and her performance dress.

My favorite songs this week were probably North Dakota (though I might be swayed here by Chloe Fredericks' voice and the quilts! over the song itself), Virginia (I do love me some 90s R n B) and Oregon (goofy but catchy).

I promise this is my last comment in this post unless I get someone else in here to talk to. :)
posted by the primroses were over at 3:45 PM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

So much of the US is flat farmland the photos they use do NOT help with identifying which state the song is from. Macy Gray isn't in the playlist for me so I found the live recording.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:11 AM on March 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dang, Jordan Smith. I'm a sucker for that kind of singing, I admit, but dang Jordan Smith.
posted by Etrigan at 8:14 AM on March 30, 2022